THE  POET  AND  THE  PARISH 


THE   POET  AND 
THE  PARISH 


BY 

MARY    MOSS 


NEW  YORK 

HENRY  HOLT  AND  COMPANY 
1906 


COPYRIGHT,  1906 

BY 

HENRY  HOLT  AND  COMPANY 


Published  September^  iqob 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.     THE  TOWN  TALKS i 

II.  MRS.  LE  GRAND  EXPOUNDS        .        .         .17 

III.  THE  WAYS  OF  THE  WICKED       .        .        .      35 

IV.  LAMBS  AND  GOATS       .....      45 
V.     ' '  POOR  LADY  I" 64 

VI.  "THE  VAPID,  VEGETABLE  LOVES"    .         .      76 

VII.     Fox  AND  CRANE gi 

VIII.  FELIX  IGNORES  THE  RULES         .        .        .115 

IX.     CRANE  AND  Fox 130 

X.  RACHEL  BERNSTEIN      .....     148 

XI.     ON  THE  ROAD 165 

XII.  THE  ZEAL  OF  PITCAIRN       .         .         .         .189 

XIII.  SOME  MAY  NOT  LOOK  OVER  A  FENCE  !       .     200 

XIV.  MR.  QUORN'S  LUCK 209 

XV.  WHILE  OTHERS  MAY  STEAL  A  HORSE       .     225 

XVI.  THE  HIGHROAD  TO  FAME  ....     239 

XVII.  A  TRIBE  OF  GUARDIAN  ANGELS          .         .     262 

XVIII.     ADELAIDE  OBEYS 281 

XIX.  "THE  ROMANY  RAWNIE"  ....     293 

XX.  WHEN  MORTAL  GIRLS  !                                      304 
v 


THE   POET  AND  THE 
PARISH 

CHAPTER  I 
Gown  Galfes 


ONLY  two  guests  at  Mrs.  Noel's  lunch 
party  failed  to  accept  their  hostess's 
statement  as  discriminating  and  final.  It  im- 
pressed five  admiring  ladies  as  the  essence  of 
accredited  wisdom  and  a  fair  working  guide 
for  their  course  towards  Felix  Gwynne. 

To  old  Mrs.  Bradish  Laurence,  who  felt 
sure  she  should  like  him,  and  to  Alice  Le 
Grand,  who  already  called  herself  his  friend, 
Mrs.  Noel's  dictum  appeared  a  peerless  flight 
of  idiocy. 

The  question  had  been  raised  how  far  it  be- 
hooved them  to  welcome  a  strange  young  man 
whose  poems  might  be  called  —  the  ladies 
hesitated  at  using  so  harsh  a  word,  but 


2  The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

finding  no  other  to  convey  the  shade  regret- 
fully proclaimed  it — "French  in  tone,  my  dear! 
Decidedly  French." 

Of  course  they  all  knew  what  that  implied, 
without  having  themselves  been  through  the 
debasing  experience  of  reading  either  Felix 
Gwynne's  verses,  or  his  reputed  models. 

His  mother  was  French ! 

He  was  born  in  France! 

He  had  never  before  been  in  America! 

This  much,  added  to  the  poems,  weighed 
heavily  against  him. 

On  the  other  hand,  he  came  "home*5  to  in- 
herit a  fortune  (another  fortune,  since  he  was 
already  amply  provided  for),  and  not  only  had 
old  Miss  Anne  left  him  riches,  but  actually  she 
had  bestowed  upon  this  foreign  young  man 
her  cherished,  not  to  say  coveted,  country 
place.  Whatever  treatment  was  due  to  Felix 
Gwynne,  poet,  the  owner  of  Chastellux  could 
not  be  lightly  brushed  aside  as  a  mere  negli- 
gible versifier. 

Then,  after  all,  he  was  Stephen  Gwynne's 


The  Town  Talks  3 

son.  Doubtless  had  Stephen  lived  (instead  of 
dying  abroad  before  his  baby  had  even  been 
born)  he  would  have  brought  his  family  home, 
and  Felix  might  now  have  been  a  model  citi- 
zen of  his  native  town — "just  like  everybody 
else,"  one  optimistic  lady  regretfully  believed. 

This  lenient  view  proved  so  plausible  and  at- 
tractive that  the  tide  was  actually  turning  to- 
wards poor  'Felix,  when  Mrs.  Noel  rallied  the 
waverers  with  her  statement,  immediately 
drawing  a  sharp  line  between  the  friends  of 
this  perplexing  young  man  and  those  conscien- 
tious buttresses  of  social  order  to  whom  the 
eternal  watchword  of  life  is  unfailingly— 
"Better  not!" 

Mrs.  Noel  swept  in  the  ladies  with  a  smile 
whose  sweet  reasonableness  entirely  matched 
her  measured  utterance.  "I  may  be  old-fash- 
ioned, Cousin  Emily,"  she  directly  addressed 
Mrs.  Bradish  Laurence,  "but  it  seems  to  me 
that  no  one  can  fail  to  agree  with  me  that  liv- 
ing writers  take  certain  liberties  at  their 
peril!" 


4  The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

Being  only  on  the  verge  of  middle-age,  Mrs. 
Le  Grand  would  have  let  this  gem  pass  un- 
questioned, but  Mrs.  Laurence's  idea  of  just 
compensation  demanded  perfect  freedom  of 
speech  for  all  really  old  ladies.  By  claiming 
this  compensation,  and  associating  habitually 
with  her  juniors,  even  at  eighty  she  managed 
to  find  life  not  quite  flavourless. 

"Living  writers,  you  said,  Georgina  ?"  The 
old  lady  turned  this  over  with  relish.  "How 
interesting!"  She  appeared  to  ruminate — to 
come  upon  a  slight  difficulty.  "But  suppose 
Felix  dies  to-night.  When  he's  dead  and 
buried  can  he  write  anything  he  pleases  with 
propriety?  And  after  he  is  dead,  can  we  read 
the  books  he  wrote  when  he  was  alive,  without 
their  hurting  us?  Does  the  poison  evaporate 
with  him?" 

"Don't!"  whispered  Mrs.  Le  Grand. 
"You'll  make  them  hate  him." 

Her  admonition,  however,  came  too  late. 
The  tone  of  Mrs.  Noel's  voice,  as  she  com- 
pletely disregarded  her  flippant  old  cousin, 


The  Town  Talks  5 

showed  a  finished  and  conscientious  dislike  to 
Felix  and  all  his  works.  "I  can  only  say  for 
myself,  I  should  be  sorry  that  a  son  of  mine 
should  have  written  any  such  book !" 

"Not  much  danger  of  that,"  Mrs.  Laurence 
whispered  audibly  to  Mrs.  Le  Grand.  "Say 
something,  Alice.  You  have  a  boy." 

Thus  adjured,  the  younger  lady  began,  pa- 
cifically: "Don't  you  really  think  that  it  is 
worth  while  for  a  man  barely  thirty  to 
have  written  good  poetry,  good  enough  to 
last?" 

"I  know  he  is  very  talented.  Of  course  we 
must  all  recognise  that."  Mrs.  Noel  granted 
so  much  to  show  her  breadth  of  mind.  "But 
I  can't  help  regretting  that  any  woman's 
son  should  have  gone  through  experiences 
which  would  enable  him  to  describe  such  emo- 
tions." 

"Mercy,  Georgina,"  Mrs.  Laurence  broke 
in,  incorrigibly,  "are  you  at  the  stage  of  sup- 
posing that  every  one  lives  through  the  things 
they  write  about?" 


6  The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

"Certainly.  I  cannot  conceive  of  any  one 
being  able  to  tell  so  much  about  things  of 
which  they  have  no  personal  knowledge." 
Mrs.  Noel's  manner  was  conclusive. 

"Very  true!" 

"How  could  he  possibly  ...    ?" 

"She  is  perfectly  right!"  This  in  subdued 
murmurs  from  the  company. 

"Carry  that  a  little  farther," — Mrs.  Lau- 
rence was  now  out  for  big  game, — "and  you'll 
see  queer  things.  Is  Mrs.  Humphry  Ward  a 
proselytising  Romanist,  or  an  agnostic  par- 
son? Helbeck  or  Robert  Elsmere?  And  did 
George  Eliot  herself  live  through  the  episodes 
of  Grandcourt  or  Hetty?  Why,  if  you  were 
right,  no  man  could  ever  paint  a  Madonna, 
without  first  going  off  and  having  a  baby,  so 
as  to  depict  maternal  emotion,  and  .  .  ." 

"I  knew  Felix  Gwynne  in  Venice,"  Mrs.  Le 
Grand  put  in  hastily. 

At  this  the  ladies  relented  enough  to  express 
their  interest  in  the  reprehensible  young  man, 
an  interest  almost  bordering  on  vulgar  curi- 


The  Town  Talks  7 

osity.  Relieved  by  her  outburst,  old  Mrs. 
Laurence  leaned  back,  placidly  watching  the 
subtleties  of  Mrs.  Le  Grand's  defence. 

"He's  amazingly  handsome."  Alice 
weighed  her  words.  "He  looks  like  a  poet," 
she  further  ventured,  keeping  a  wary  eye  on 
her  audience.  "A  poet  with  short  hair  and 
Colonel  Noel's  own  laundress." 

The  atmosphere  quivered  with  relief.  Hav- 
ing braced  themselves  for  curls  and  worse,  the 
ladies  felt  slightly  reassured. 

Mrs.  Le  Grand  played  ace.  "His  grand- 
father, who  brought  him  up,  was  a  very  great 
swell.  Lived  in  a  wonderful  old  place  in 
Brittany.  They  used  to  have  boar  hunts,  and 
all  sorts  of  queer  feudal  amusements.  The  old 
duke  .  .  ." 

"I  thought  he  was  educated  in  England," 
Mrs.  Noel  corrected. 

"He  did  go  there  to  college."  Mrs.  Le 
Grand  thought  best  to  get  the  worst  over  with- 
out shirking.  "To  Stoneyhurst,  the  Jesuit 
place," 


8  The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

The  ladies  now  looked  as  if  they  understood 
how  the  trouble  began. 

Alice,  however,  produced  palliatives. 
"They  meant  him  for  some  post  at  the  Vatican 
— you  know  how  Royalist  they  all  are!  But 
he  wouldn't  take  it.  He  always  travels  a  lot, 
in  the  East  and  all  over." 

"I  suppose  he  is  very  well  off."  Mrs.  Lau- 
rence now  lent  a  hand. 

"All  the  Gwynne  money,  and  his  mother 
had  some  dot,"  Mrs.  Le  Grand  reminded  them, 
knowing  that  any  revenue  derived  from  a  book 
of  poems  would  impress  the  ladies  as  highly 
evanescent. 

Another  happy  item  was  his  mother's  early 
death.  It  spared  the  shock  of  seeing  a  French- 
woman installed  in  dear  Miss  Anne's  place  at 
Chastellux.  But,  on  the  whole,  distrust  pre- 
vailed to  such  an  extent  that  Mrs.  Le  Grand 
presently  found  herself  saying  with  some 
irritability:  "If  I  felt  as  you  do,  Cousin 
Georgina,  and  Adelaide  were  my  daughter, 
I'd  pack  her  off  to  Europe  for  the  whole 


The  Town  Talks  9 

time  that  he  is  at  large  in  this  part  of  the 
world." 

Mrs.  Noel  looked  her  disdainful  security. 

"Oh,  I  know,"  Alice  went  on.  "Adelaide  is 
the  soul  of  discretion.  But  then  she's  never 
seen  any  one  like  Felix.  The  way  all  sorts  of 
women  fall  clown  before  him  is  simply  scandal- 
ous. I  believe  a  good  half  the  things  we  hear 
happen  in  spite  of  him.  And  he  would  never 
dream  of  vindicating  himself.  Felix  cares  far 
too  little  what  people  think."  She  went  on  to 
recount  how  "Albert  Yule"  had  positively  suf- 
fered from  showers  of  vicarious  attention 
when  he  was  in  London,  merely  because  of 
being  fresh  from  a  walking  trip  with  Felix. 

"Shall  we  go  into  the  drawing-room  for  our 
coffee?"  Mrs.  Noel  ignored  all  reference  to 
her  daughter.  Adelaide,  with  her  looks,  her 
training,  and  a  naturally  correct  taste,  was 
comfortably  certain  to  marry  some  accounta- 
ble fellow  citizen.  Even  New  York  or  Boston 
could  hardly  offer  a  mate  thoroughly  congenial 
to  so  complete  a  daughter  of  her  own  parish. 


io         The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

For  generations  none  of  the  family  had  ever 
married  "away,"  and  it  was  most  improbable 
that  a  girl  of  such  environment  and  hereditary 
influence  should  need  barriers  to  protect  her 
from  the  showy  attentions  of  a  scatter-brained 
poet,  whose  book  was  not  of  a  nature  to  be  laid 
before  any  carefully  reared  maiden.  Mrs. 
Noel  would  as  soon  have  expected  her 
daughter  to  flirt  with  a  fiddler! 

In  the  drawing-room  Adelaide  herself  bent 
over  a  huge  salver  of  ugly  Georgian  silver, 
laden  with  old  Sevres  coffee-cups. 

"I  often  wonder  where  that  girl  gets  her 
straight  nose  and  her  height,"  Mrs.  Laurence 
whispered  to  her  ally.  "Georgina  at  her  best 
was  never  handsomer  than  the  Sully  portraits 
of  Queen  Victoria ;  and,  dear  knows !  Anthony 
Noel  is  a  good  creature,  but  red-faced  and 
stocky  ..." 

"Hush!"  Mrs.  Le  Grand  whispered. 
"Haven't  you  been  naughty  enough  for  one 
day?" 

"If  it  weren't  for  those  eyes,"  the  old  lady 


The  Town  Talks  1 1 

went  on,  "she  would  be  uninteresting.  Too 
regular,  too  perfect  and  restrained.  But  her 
eyes  have  a  look  that  isn't  usual." 

"I  know  what  you  mean."  Mrs.  Le  Grand 
was  studying  the  girl.  "I  see  something  more 
in  them  than  she's  ever  likely  to  have  any  use 
for,  but  just  what  is  it?" 

"Nothing  after  all" — the  old  voice  softened 
— "but  what  belongs  in  every  unspoilt  young 
thing;  a  little  more  feeling  than  she  herself  has 
had  time  to  find  out  about.  Then  Adelaide's 
really  good — good  up  to  the  point  where  good- 
ness stops  being  unattractive.  It's  a  positive 
charm  with  her.  But  here  she  comes." 

"Coffee,  Cousin  Emily?"  Nothing  could 
be  prettier  than  Adelaide's  manner  to  her  old 
kinswoman. 

Mrs.  Laurence  looked  her  well  up  and 
down,  nodding  approval.  Her  tall  slim  figure 
was  set  off  by  a  pleasantly  inevitable  way  of 
dressing.  No  one  could  imagine  Adelaide 
Noel  planning  or  fuming  over  her  wardrobe. 
She  had  completely  the  air  of  ordering  what- 


1 2         The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

ever  pretty  garment  season  or  fashion 
might  demand,  and  wearing  it  without  con- 
sciousness or  effort.  She  was  simple,  direct, 
and  above  all  unaffectedly  imbued  with  the 
traditions  in  which  she  had  been  reared. 

"Come  and  talk  to  your  old  cousin."  Mrs. 
Laurence  had  particularly  coaxing  ways  with 
young  people.  "And  tell  me  all  about  your  ad- 
mirers." 

"Dear  Cousin  Emily!"  Adelaide  laughed 
more  girlishly  than  the  dignity  of  her  air  led 
you  to  expect.  "I  haven't  one  to  my  name !" 

"Don't  be  so  secretive,  child.  At  your  age  I 
didn't  know  the  meaning  of  the  word.  What 
of  that  sunburnt  young  man  with  the  coach, 
young — young — I  forget  his  name?" 

"Do  you  mean  Harry  Wentworth  ?  But  his 
engagement  is  out  to-day,  to  Sophie  Connor. 
It  was  a  secret  till  three  o'clock,  but  I  can  tell 
now.  It's  almost  half-past."  Adelaide's  con- 
science was  as  literal  as  the  multiplication 
table. 

"As  if  that  prevented  his  having  asked  you 


The  Town  Talks  i  3 

first!"  the  old  lady  objected.  "Never  mind, 
my  dear,  it's  quite  right  and  honourable  not  to 
betray  your  conquests,  but  there  can  be  no 
harm  in  telling  me  whom  you  like  best." 

"I  like  no  one  better  than  you,  Cousin 
Emily.  You  say  such  nice  things,"  Adelaide 
assured  her.  "But  I'm  in  no  hurry  to  be  mar- 
ried. It's  very  pleasant,  just  so.  I  don't 
mean,"  she  added  simply,  "that  I  never  want 
to.  It  seems  a  right  and  natural  thing  to  do," 
— she  blushed  with  a  sudden  sense  of  reserve, 
— "but  not  yet,  not  for  ages  and  ages." 

"That  is  where  you  are  wrong."  The  old 
lady  had  also  grown  serious.  "You're  a 
nice  creature  now,  my  dear;  but  in  our 
family  the  sap  soon  turns  to  wood.  You 
won't  find  the  adjustment  of  life  an  easy 
matter  once  you've  passed  thirty.  We  grow 
inflexible." 

"I  don't  think  that  has  happened  to  you, 
even  now,  cousin."  The  girl  affectionately 
patted  the  wrinkled  old  hand. 

"I've   always   been   an   unworthy   member. 


14         The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

Did  they  never  tell  you  what  a  wretch  of  a  hoy- 
den I  was?  No?  Well,  it's  very  discreet  of 
them  to  forget."  The  old  lady  seemed  only 
moderately  gratified  at  this  reticence.  "Will 
you  see  if  my  carriage  has  come,  dear," — she 
hesitated, — "and  if  you  ever  do  get  into  trou- 
ble about  your  affairs,  come  to  me  on  the  sly, 
child.  I'm  full  of  experience." 

"Trouble!  Darling  Cousin  Emily!"  Ade- 
laide stooped  and  kissed  her.  "Fancy  my 
being  in  trouble !  But  thank  you  all  the  same. 
I'll  be  sure  to  come  oftener  than  ever,  but  only 
because*  you  are  such  a  dear." 

"I  shall  always  feel" — Mrs.  Noel's  voice 
came  from  another  group — "that  old  Miss 
Anne  hardly  had  a  right  to  leave  Chastellux 
to  him.  There  were  much  nearer  relatives 
with  lifelong  associations.  Who  knows  if  this 
young  man  will  ever  go  near  the  place?" 

"My  husband  says  the  will  is  a  perfect  curi- 
osity," put  in  a  lady  whose  part  had  hitherto 
been  unenterprising  chorus.  The  chance  had 


The  Town  Talks  1 5 

been  slow  in  coming,  but  now  all  attention  fo- 
cussed  upon  her.  "Yes,  it  is  to  be  kept  up 
just  as  it  was  in  her  lifetime.  A  man  always 
at  the  front  door  to  be  ready  before  any  one 
could  ring.  There  is  a  sum  specially  set  apart 
for  wages  and  everything.  The  old  green- 
houses are  to  be  taken  care  of  forever,  and  her 
old  horses.  But  Chastellux'  room,  the  one 
where  he  slept  after  the  battle  of  Red  Bank,  is 
for  the  new  master." 

"Were  you  ever  there?"  the  ladies  queried. 

"Not  I,  but  my  husband.  He  says  that  Miss 
Anne  dressed  every  evening  and  had  din- 
ner served  in  state,  though  she  was  nearly 
ninety  and  lived  alone.  A  butler  and  a  second 
man,  with  course  after  course,  though  the  poor 
soul  herself  could  only  digest  a  little  gruel." 

"It  is  a  beautiful  house,  standing  back  from 
the  river,"  Mrs.  Le  Grand  struck  in.  "My 
father  used  to  take  me  to  see  Miss  Anne  when 
I  was  a  girl.  Albert  Yule  says  nothing  is 
changed.  He  has  gone  up  two  or  three  times, 
looking  after  things  for  Felix." 


1 6         The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

"Now  there  is  another  person  I  do  feel  sorry 
about!"  Mrs.  Noel  was  not  above  mildly 
punishing  Alice  for  her  discreet  championship 
of  those  two  culprits,  Mrs.  Laurence  and 
Felix.  "Albert  Yule  has  such  unusual  friends. 
He  dines  at  one's  house  himself,  and  is  just 
like  everybody  else,  but  he  belongs  to  clubs 
with  newspaper  people,  and  all  sorts  of  men 
you  never  hear  of,  writers  and  painters." 

"I  wonder  what  would  happen" — Mrs.  Le 
Grand  permitted  no  criticism  of  Albert  Yule — 
"if  any  of  us  had  to  spend  a  month  in  one  of 
those  Western  towns  where  they  shoot  to  kill 
if  you  want  to  know  who  a  person  is." 

"At  least,  Alice  dear,"  Mrs.  Noel  hastened 
with  a  doubtful  peace  offering,  "that  is  a  ques- 
tion none  of  us  need  ask  about  your  friend 
Felix  Gwynne." 


CHAPTER  II 
.  Xe  (Brand  Bipoun&0 

IN  spite  of  the  preceding  ripple,  Felix's  ar- 
rival in  town  caused  small  commotion. 
People  vaguely  heard  that  he  had  come,  that 
he  had  stopped  a  night  with  Mrs.  Le  Grand, 
and  dined  with  a  batch  of  Albert  Yule's  ir- 
regular acquaintances.  Harry  Le  Grand  had 
little  to  say  of  his  wife's  guest,  but  Yule's 
friends  found  the  newcomer  an  excellent  lis- 
tener, disposed  to  talk  of  anything  rather  than 
his  own  achievements.  Then  it  was  bruited 
abroad  that  he  had  shut  himself  up  at  Chastel- 
lux,  whither  the  luckless  man  of  business  was 
compelled  to  follow  him,  since  he  positively  de- 
clined to  set  foot  in  town  while  the  fine 
weather  lasted.  Interviewers  failed  to  catch  a 
glimpse  of  him;  Albert  Yule  confessed  that 
poets  were  naturally  unmanageable,  but  set  all 
17 


1 8         The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

Mr.  Gwynne's  peculiarities  down  to  excess  of 
modesty  and  shyness. 

One  day  Felix  himself  called  upon  Mrs. 
Bradish  Laurence,  and  she  fell  in  love  with 
him.  "He  looks  exactly  like  Lord  Byron," 
she  thereafter  affirmed,  "and  talks  like  an 
angel,  or  at  least  I  think  he  did.  Possibly  he  is 
one  of  those  people  who  can't  say  'good-morn- 
ing' without  making  you  feel  you've  enjoyed 
treasures  of  eloquence." 

"I  was  almost  tempted  to  stay  North,  on  the 
chance  of  his  paying  me  another  visit,"  the  old 
lady  confided  to  Adelaide  Noel,  who  was  help- 
ing a  travel-seasoned  maid  to  dispose  of  many 
belongings  in  a  south-bound  train,  "but  this 
early  sleet  is  too  much  for  old  bones.  You  are 
very  good  to  come  and  see  me  off !  Have  you 
met  him  yet?" 

Adelaide  had  not  seen  Mr.  Gwynne. 

"Well,  when  you  do," — Mrs.  Laurence 
seized  upon  every  chance  to  undermine  Noel 
home  influence, — "don't  be  too  everlastingly 
discreet." 


Mrs.  Le  Grand  Expounds        19 

Adelaide  straightened  her  slim  young  back 
from  bending  over  a  footstool,  looking  out 
over  her  furs  with  frank  amusement.  "How 
am  I  to  begin?"  she  humoured  the  old  lady. 
"In  my  place,  what  would  you  do  first?" 

"Mercy,  child,"  Mrs.  Laurence  broke  out, 
"how  can  I  tell  you?  But  so  much  is  certain, 
mark  my  words !  If  you  are  not  a  little  foolish 
now,  at  the  right  time,  some  find  day  you'll  let 
yourself  in  for  a  reverberating  piece  of  folly. 
That  is  what  happens  when  any  young  thing 
is  too  everlastingly  prudent." 

"But,  Cousin  Emily,"  the  girl  protested,  "I 
really  do  everything  I  wish  to !" 

The  old  lady  vibrated  between  pity  and  im- 
patience at  an  innocent  who  extracted  so  little 
flavour  from  the  fleeting  time  of  youth.  For 
all  her  wisdom,  Mrs.  Laurence  could  never 
quite  realise  that  some  palates  are  not  agree- 
ably tickled  by  pepper  and  ginger. 

"Do  you  never  feel  like  skipping  dinner 
visits,  or  breaking  an  engagement?"  she 
asked. 


20         The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

Adelaide  revolved  the  question  honestly. 
"Why,  no,"  she  answered  gravely.  "I  can't 
see  what  pleasure  there  would  be  in  that." 

"Do  you  never  fancy  a  bit  of  the  moon,  or 
wish  that  Sunday  would  fall  in  the  middle  of 
the  week,  just  for  a  change?"  the  old  lady 
called  after  her  as  a  shout  of  "All  aboard"  hur- 
ried the  girl  from  the  train. 

On  her  way  from  the  station  Adelaide  pon- 
dered on  these  strange  suggestions.  Why 
should  any  one  object  to  paying  proper  visits, 
and  this  reminded  her  of  owing  one.  There 
was  plenty  of  time  before  dinner. 

"Yes,"  the  trim  maid  answered,  "Mrs.  Le 
Grand  is  at  home;  not  in  the  drawing-room — 
the  library,  miss." 

Coming  in  from  a  nipping  frost,  Adelaide 
felt  unusually  alive  to  the  comfort  of  Alice  Le 
Grand's  luxurious  firelit  room.  A  faint  lamp 
hardly  conquered  the  gloom  of  a  late  Novem- 
ber day,  and  there  was  a  pleasant  sense  of  in- 
formality in  the  attitude  of  a  young  man  who 
lounged  at  his  ease  in  a  big  armchair  before 


Mrs.  Le  Grand  Expounds        21 

the  hearth.  Adelaide's  quick  glance  took  in 
the  cigarette,  the  general  air  of  intimacy. 
With  many  of  her  friends  she  would  have  felt 
the  odium  of  breaking  in  on  a  tete-a-tete,  but 
Cousin  Alice  always  had  people  about,  and 
seemed  to  like  sharing  them.  The  stranger 
was  standing  up. 

"Adelaide,  this  is  Mr.  Gwynne."  Mrs.  Le 
Grand  added :  "My  cousin,  Miss  Noel." 

Adelaide's  first  impression  was  surprise. 
This  widely  heralded  being  proved  so  much 
less  startling  than  she  had  been  led  to  expect. 
Indeed,  a  happy  mixture  of  scented  Turkish 
attache  and  hirsute  Italian  brigand  would  have 
more  nearly  met  her  anticipations  than  this  si- 
lent young  man,  neither  tall  nor  short,  dressed 
like  all  the  world — rather  better,  perhaps. 
This  she  decided  after  a  second's  quiet  inspec- 
tion. 

In  the  uncertain  light  his  face  showed  pale, 
and  after  bowing  with  a  touch  of  foreign 
punctilio,  he  preserved  complete  silence.  She 
also  noticed  that  he  no  longer  lounged,  but  sat 


22         The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

up  decorously;  the  cigarette  had  been  thrown 
aside. 

"I  have  just  been  to  see  Cousin  Emily  off." 
Adelaide  was  too  comfortably  sure  of  herself 
to  be  constrained  by  this  speechless  presence. 
She  saw  no  reason  for  Mr.  Gwynne's  disliking 
her. 

"Your  Mrs.  Bradish  Laurence,"  Mrs.  Le 
Grand  explained  to  the  stranger. 

"Have  you  many  old  ladies  of  that  stripe, 
Miss  Noel?"  Felix  asked,  as  if  the  subject 
pleased  him. 

The  brilliancy  of  his  smile  positively 
shocked  Adelaide.  There  was  little  facial 
change,  but  a  radiating  light  and  vividness,  a 
betrayal  of  mood  and  feeling  quite  unlike  her 
accepted  standard  of  human  intercourse.  In- 
evitably it  produced  in  her  an  added  aloofness, 
and  then  his  speaking  so  freely  of  one's  rela- 
tions— an  older  person,  too.  "I  do  not  quite 
understand!"  She  turned  clear  eyes  on  him, 
faintly  disapproving. 

Felix  had  risen  from  his  chair,  and  stood 


Mrs.  Le  Grand  Expounds        23 

with  his  back  to  the  fire,  looking  eagerly  into 
her  face.  A  young  lady  given  to  snubbing  was 
a  rarity  to  a  young  man  whose  path  had  been 
beset  with  only  too  much  complaisance. 
Friends  or  enemies  variously  attributed  his 
lack  of  fatuity  to  an  utter  absence  of  vanity, 
or  to  a  conceit  so  huge  as  to  ignore  the  chance 
of  any  one's  finding  him  other  than  delightful. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  Felix's  own  sensations 
were  far  too  interesting  for  him  to  waste  time 
in  speculating  upon  what  impression  he  might 
be  making.  He  either  keenly  craved  people's 
company — or  their  absence.  Boredom  was 
unknown  to  him,  for  the  simple  reason  that  on 
its  most  distant  approach,  he  invariably  fled. 

"Mrs.  Laurence  is  so  very  kind,"  he  ex- 
plained politely,  "so  wise  and  witty — like  some 
enchanting  eighteenth-century  person,  and 
then  modern  too,  to  her  finger  tips." 

Finding  his  reply  properly  impersonal, 
Adelaide  relaxed  a  trifle.  Possibly  Mrs.  Le 
Grand's  strong  tea  loosened  her  tongue  un- 
duly, for  she  presently  imparted  Mrs.  Lau- 


24         The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

fence's  last  query,  the  one  to  which  she  could 
find  no  answer. 

"And  you  never  cry  for  the  moon?"  Felix 
asked,  "or  wish  Sunday  morning  would,  once 
in  a  way,  fall  on  Wednesday  afternoon?" 

Adelaide  laughed.  "No,  never.  It  would 
be  so  upsetting.  You  would  not  know  whether 
to  go  to  church  or  not."  Then  remembering 
his  papist  upbringing,  she  repented  of  this  ref- 
erence to  religion.  To  her,  Catholicism  was  a 
peculiarity  which  its  votaries  must  know  to  be 
a  disqualification.  It  was  hardly  kind  for  for- 
tunate people  to  touch  on  something  in  the 
nature  of  a  congenital  defect,  like  talking  lawn 
tennis  to  a  cripple. 

Conscious  of  a  vague  obstacle  in  the  talk, 
Mrs.  Le  Grand  struck  in :  "My  cousin  Miss 
Noel  is  not  restless.  Life  is  seriously  satis- 
factory to  her.  A  frivolous  person  like  our 
old  friend  puzzles  her,  though  for  a  young 
creature  she  has  some  tolerance." 

At  this  Adelaide  was  distinctly  ruffled.  Too 
bad  of  Cousin  Alice  to  turn  one  inside  out  for 


Mrs.  Le  Grand  Expounds        25 

a  stranger.  All  trace  of  relaxation  had  van- 
ished as  she  rose  to  leave. 

"Pray  tell  me  one  thing,"  Felix  asked  with 
a  twinkle  of  mischief;  "you  see,  Miss  Noel, 
I'm  almost  a  benighted  Frenchman  ..." 

Why,  so  he  was,  and  she  had  quite  lost  sight 
of  it,  listening  to  the  silver  tone  of  his  flawless 
English. 

"In  this  good  town,  does  one  shake  hands, 
or  not?"  His  question  came  in  apparent  good 
faith. 

Adelaide  hesitated.  "Only  with  friends,  I 
think,"  she  answered  after  due  consideration. 

Inwardly  amused,  Felix  bowed  with  careful 
formality,  sinking  back  into  his  lounging  pos- 
ture at  the  last  rustle  of  her  departing  dra- 
peries. 

"And  you  urge  me  to  go  about,  to  balls  and 
things."  He  turned  on  Mrs.  Le  Grand,  re- 
monstrating. "Don't  you  see  what  a  mess  I 
should  make  of  it?  Miss  Noel  was  afraid  of 
me,  even  here,  under  your  eye.  Heaven  only 
knows  what  she  thought  I  might  be  up  to!" 


26         The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

"There  are  very  few  like  Adelaide,"  Mrs. 
Grand  protested.  "And  the  married  ones  are 
much  less — unapproachable.  I  merely  think  it 
stupid  in  you  to  come  all  the  way  over  here, 
and  then  shut  yourself  up  and  see  no  one.  If 
you  were  in  Borneo  you  would  take  the  trouble 
to  look  up  the  native  ways,  and  after  all,  this 
place  has  ties,  for  you." 

He  smoked,  obstinately.  "I  know  all  Yule's 
people,  and  hear  about  the  rest,  from  him  and 
you." 

"Not  the  same,"  she  objected,  adding  with 
much  wile,  "it's  really  because  of  your  aris- 
tocratic prejudices.  You  secretly  think  every- 
thing here  hopelessly  bourgeois.  You  don't 
mind  when  it's  frankly  impossible,  like  Albert's 
entourage,  but  the  others  you  can't  put  up 
with,  the  quasi-aristocrats." 

"Nothing  of  the  kind," — he  rose  to  her  bait, 
—"and,  dear  lady,  pardon  me,  but  you  do  use 
words  .  .  ." 

"I  know,"  she  confessed,  "it's  disgusting. 
That's  where  you  are  different.  You  can  ex- 


Mrs.  Le  Grand  Expounds        27 

press  the  thing  without  talking  like  a  sales- 
lady. I  can't.  Have  you  no  missionary 
zeal?" 

This  he  passed  over  with  a  protest.  "But  I 
don't  go  about,  formally,  anywhere,  not  in 
London  or  Paris.  It  doesn't  amuse  me,  now. 
As  for  the  other,  you  know  it's  all  nonsense. 
For  that  matter,  could  there  ever  have  breathed 
a  more  domineering  aristocrat  than  my  old 
kinswoman  at  Chastellux?  certainly  no  one 
who  spent  more  time  thinking  about  it?" 

Mrs.  Le  Grand  was  quick  to  seize  this  open- 
ing. "And  how  do  you  suppose  Miss  Anne 
would  relish  it,  if  she  knew  of  your  never 
meeting  any  of  the  family  or  the  family 
friends?" 

This  struck  Felix  as  reasonable.  Just  now 
he  felt  greatly  under  the  spell  of  his  unex- 
pected inheritance.  His  imagination  wove  a 
whimsical  sentiment  about  the  unknown  old 
woman  who  had  in  a  way  trusted  him  with 
what  she  deemed  a  great  dignity.  "If  you 
really  think  that,"  he  slowly  conceded,  "I'll  go 


28         The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

everywhere  for  a  few  weeks — not  too  many- 
dear  lady,  and  meet  them  all.  I'll  even  open 
my  doors  to  them,  if  they  will  come." 

"They'll  come  gladly  enough."  Having  ac- 
complished her  object,  Mrs.  Le  Grand  felt 
some  alarm  at  the  responsibility  of  sponsoring 
an  unaccountable  meteor. 

"I've  induced  Felix  Gwynne  to  accept  a  lot 
of  invitations,"  she  confided  to  her  husband, 
that  night.  "I  hope  it  will  turn  out 
well !" 

"I  suppose  he  don't  eat  with  his  knife." 
Harry  Le  Grand's  literalness  was  a  fact  to 
which  his  wife  never  grew  accustomed,  al- 
though it  had  constantly  met  her  at  every  point 
of  the  compass,  day  in  and  day  out,  for  four- 
teen endless  years.  Why  she  had  married  this 
honest  gentleman  was  a  problem  which  Alice 
found  increasingly  difficult.  Probably  be- 
cause there  had  been  no  valid  reason  to  the 
contrary.  Not  that  she  was  unhappy! 
Merely,  life  with  him  would  have  been  a  trifle 


Mrs.  Le  Grand  Expounds        29 

lonely,  but  for  Albert  Yule.  Not  that  she  dis- 
liked Harry;  in  fact,  she  adored  Freddy,  their 
only  boy,  who  precisely  reproduced  his  father. 
She  had  even  scant  complaint  to  make  of  her 
stepdaughter,  though  respect  for  Bessy's 
eighteen  years  rather  checked  a  theoretical 
leaning  towards  Bohemianism  of  a  self-con- 
scious kind.  Mrs.  Le  Grand  belonged  to  that 
numerous  class  of  women  who  find  their  nat- 
ural playfellows  too  conservative,  too  trite, 
while  sensitively  shrinking  from  the  lack  of 
usage  often  accompanying  the  qualities  for 
which  they  yearn.  Harry  once  reduced  her  in 
one  of  his  rare  epigrams :  "Alice  is  like  the 
man  who  would  be  a  sport,  but  beer  made  him 
sick!"  Inwardly,  she  shrank  from  the  truth 
of  this.  She  could  not  rise  to  the  plane  of  Al- 
bert Yule,  who  never  seemed  to  care  where 
people  lived  or  what  they  did,  so  long  as  they 
offered  him  any  one  point  of  interest  or  amuse- 
ment. At  her  urgent  request,  Yule  had  lately 
brought  to  tea  a  brilliant  young  scholar  named 
Brown,  whose  grasp  of  comparative  philology 


30         The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

made  him  the  wonder  of  two  continents. 
Finding  Mrs.  Le  Grand  quite  astray  on  his  own 
subject,  whither  she  conscientiously  led  him, 
he  politely  planted  his  feet  upon  ground  which 
he  felt  to  be  hers.  He  seemed  ravaged  by  a 
thirst  for  Mrs.  Le  Grand's  views  upon  divorce 
and  Le  Contrat  Social.  He  fairly  pursued 
her,  with  philosophic  directness  of  speech,  until 
Bessy  happened  in  on  them.  After  this  poor 
Alice  heard  him  murmuring  dreadful  compli- 
mentary things  to  a  highly  antagonised  lis- 
tener. In  the  course  of  a  week,  meeting  Miss 
Le  Grand  in  a  street-car,  he  lavishly  paid  her 
fare  and  accompanied  the  astonished  girl  to 
her  own  door,  facilitating  the  passage  of  every 
crossing,  by  a  protective  grip  of  her  elbow. 
Bessy  arrived  at  home  in  a  state  of  burning 
wrath,  also  she  felt  disturbed  about  the  carfare: 
Mr.  Brown's  appearance  suggested  the  im- 
portance of  every  nickel. 

Albert  was  sitting  with  Mrs.  Le  Grand  when 
the  angry  victim  whirled  in,  red  and  breathless 
from  Mr.  Brown's  last  effort. 


Mrs.  Le  Grand  Expounds        3 1 

"He  positively  boosted  me  up  my  own  front 
steps."  The  girl  was  quite  serious  about  the 
enormity  of  his  offence. 

"But  he  is  so  intelligent,"  Mrs.  Le  Grand 
put  in  half-heartedly. 

"No  use,  dear  lady,"  Albert  Yule  protested. 
"You  don't  really  like  them  any  better  than 
Bessy  here.  You  demand  that  a  man  shall 
have  all  the  wisdom  of  the  ages  stored  away 
in  his  head,  that  he  shall  have  conquered  cir- 
cumstances, worked  his  way  through  college, 
supported  a  family,  mastered  a  science  and  a 
few  arts,  and  still  find  time  to  get  all  the  fa- 
cility and  accomplishments — that  he  shall 
polish  his  nails  .  .  .  Oh,  not  that  of  course," 
at  a  gesture  of  dissent.  "Don't  be  literal — 
you  know  what  I  mean,  that's  a  figure  of 
speech.  You  require  finish.  It's  the  same 
thing.  You  never  get  beyond  wincing  when 
they  come  out  with  the  wrong  word,  the  high- 
school  word.  Correct  in  the  dictionary, 
wrong  in  a  parlour.  Stick  to  your  own  kind, 
you're  really  happier  with  them.  A  second 


32         The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

drawing  off  the  others  is  all  you've  the  palate 
for." 

"You  mean  I'm  a  snob,"  she  complained, 
"but  I  don't  see  why  there  needs  must  be  an- 
tagonism between  brains  and  manners.  Some 
people  have  both.  Look  at  you,  and  there  is 
Felix  Gwynne." 

"The  trouble  about  Felix  .  .  ."  Albert 
began. 

"But  must  there  be  trouble?"  she  inter- 
rupted. "You  always  take  for  granted  that 
things  are  to  go  wrong  with  him." 

"The  trouble,"  Albert  persisted,  "will  al- 
ways be  that  every  woman  who  runs  across 
him  is  bound  to  be  thinking  of  him  in  one  way 
or  another  in  relation  to  herself.  It  is  not  his 
fault.  He  does  something  to  their  imagina- 
tions. Why,  even  you  .  .  ." 

"Me!"  Alice  was  indignant.  "Old  enough 
to  be  his  mother?" 

"Yes,  or  almost  old  enough."  Albert  at 
times  talked  hideously  like  a  husband.  "And 
of  course  any  unsophisticated  youth  of  thirty, 


Mrs.  Le  Grand  Expounds        33 

with  a  continental  training,  naturally  needs  a 
protector  for  his  inexperience.  You,  my  dear, 
are  only  safely  mothering  him.  That's  why 
you  hate  to  see  him  in  Mrs.  Darling's  opera 
box.  Mrs.  Laurence  was  ready  to  grand- 
mother him.  Bessy  only  craves  a  few  minutes' 
sensible  talk  with  him,  all  to  herself,  however. 
Adelaide  only  cares  to  help  in  planting  his 
steps  in  safe  and  seemly  paths.  Each  one  of 
you  feels  a  special  mission  towards  him,  and 
believes  that  the  others  grievously  misunder- 
stand, and  better  keep  away.  In  fact,  Master 
Felix  is  seldom  out  of  your  thoughts,  while 
he,  poor  lad,  isn't  bothering  his  head  about  one 
of  you.  Women  are  really  less  to  him  than  to 
any  man  I  know." 

"I  wonder,  are  you  right?"  Alice  had  a  dis- 
concerting consciousness  of  hoping  for  more 
from  Felix  than  the  young  man  ever  gave, 
that  he  would  unburthen  himself  of  revela- 
tions which  would  test  her  endurance,  while 
duty  compelled  her  to  listen.  This  he  never 
did!  That  she  should  be  called  upon  to  re- 


34         The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

prove  him  for  undue  familiarity  of  manner, 
for  attempting  even  to  hold  her  hand,  without, 
perhaps,  exactly  stopping  him.  This  he  never 
offered  to  do,  yet  more  than  once  she  thought 
of  it.  "I  wonder,  are  you  right?"  Introspec- 
tion showed  her  things  she  did  not  care  to  see. 

"Of  course  I  am!"  Albert  had  not  studied 
her  for  years  without  learning  somewhat  of 
the  ways  of  woman.  "That  is  the  whole  diffi- 
culty. And  I  think  you  might  do  just  as  well 
to  reckon  with  Bessy.  In  love  she  would  be 
the  most  diverting  spectacle,  still,  just  for  our 
idle  amusement  .  .  ." 

"Bessy !"  Mrs.  Le  Grand  received  this  with 
incredulous  surprise.  Notwithstanding  her 
speech  about  protecting  Adelaide,  she  had 
never  seriously  thought  of  Felix  in  relation  to 
any  immature  young  girl. 


Wags  of  tbe  TKHtcfce& 

ALTHOUGH  full  of  interest  in  himself, 
Felix  had  by  no  means  grasped  the  ex- 
tent of  his  importance  to  the  world  at  large, 
his  own  simple  demand  being  that  people 
should  interest  him  or  leave  him  alone.  Nor 
could  he  conceive  that  the  fact  of  his  writing  a 
book  should  give  him  lustre  in  quarters  where 
the  book  itself  gave  only  offence.  Therefore 
he  often  found  happy  sanctuary  in  a  club,  to 
the  constant  annoyance  of  many  disapproving 
ladies  who  thought  Mr.  Gwynne  could  not  be 
better  occupied  than  in  analysing  their  mys- 
terious souls,  or  worshipping  their  eye- 
brows. 

Passing  through  the  smoking-room  of  this 
refuge  he  was  hailed  by  a  shout  from  a  group, 
who  had  almost  ceased  to  rate  him  as  an  out- 
35 


36         The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

sider  from  the  moment  that  he  had  left  the 
entire  company  perceptibly  poorer  from  a  bout 
at  poker.  In  the  esteem  of  these  gentlemen  he 
had  quite  lived  down  his  liaison  with  literature. 
Indeed,  they  had  obligingly  forgotten  it. 

"Ask  him!" 

"See  if  Gwynne  can  do  it !" 

"Just  a  second !  Two  to  one,  did  you  say?" 
The  speaker  made  hasty  jottings  in  a  small  ac- 
count book. 

"Are  you  ready,  Gwynne?"  the  first  ques- 
tioner called  through  a  cloud  of  smoke. 

Felix  paused  somewhat  restively  on  the 
threshold.  He  was  in  full  tide  of  resolve  to 
answer  a  note  before  it  slipped  from  his  mind, 
general  politeness  being  his  present  form  of 
piety  toward  Miss  Anne's  memory. 

"How  do  you  pronounce  .  .  .  ?"  A  red- 
faced  young  man  removed  his  cigar  to 
enunciate  the  difficult  combination  with  all 
clearness. 

"Wait  a  minute,"  called  another  voice. 
"Better  explain  first.  My  brother  had  an 


The  Ways  of  the  Wicked        37 

awful  time  getting  a  name  for  his  yacht.  All 
the  good  ones  seemed  taken.  Now  he's  rooted 
up  this  somewhere,  got  some  woman  to  help 
him,  and  I  bet  him  that  not  a  man  at  the  club 
could  pronounce  it.  None  of  us  could.  All 
right  now,  Gwynne,  are  you  listening?  Here 
goes  then.  Two  to  one  you  can't,  if  I  spell  it 
off  fast— M.  N.  E.  M.  O.  SY.  N.  E.  .  .  ." 

"Oh !  Oh !"  a  half-dozen  voices  exclaimed 
as  Felix  apologetically  performed  the  feat. 
"He  must  have  heard !  Some  one  must  have 
told  him!" 

"I  think,"  solemnly  volunteered  a  copper- 
coloured  man  of  very  quiet  manner,  "that  the 
bet  was  loosely  laid,  do  you  see  ?  Gwynne  has 
written  a  book." 

By  this  time  Felix  was  smiling  delightedly; 
the  note,  a  long-delayed  answer  to  a  dinner  in- 
vitation, had  quite  passed  from  his  mind. 
"Yes,  you're  right,"  he  put  in,  entirely  seizing 
their  point  of  view,  and  eager  to  clear  himself 
of  what  they  would  certainly  consider  ped- 
antry. "I  shouldn't  have  answered.  Count 


38         The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

me  out.  It's  like  playing  a  professional.  I 
have  to  know  some  of  those  queer  old  things, 
on  account  of  writing  a  little  sometimes." 

"My  bet  was  laid  without  reserve,"  said  the 
loser,  drawing  out  a  roll  of  clean  money. 
"Have  a  drink,  Gwynne?" 

"No,  he  must  come  along  with  me,  we're 
late  now."  This  from  Albert  Yule,  who  had 
followed  Felix  unobserved. 

"All  the  same  he's  a  good  fellow  to  back," 
the  copper-face  remarked,  as  the  two  friends 
disappeared.  "Gwynne  puts  up  a  good  game 
of  billiards.  I  don't  understand  how  he  hap- 
pens to  write  books.  He  has  money  of  his 
own." 

"He's  a  queer  chap.  My  wife  was  keen  on 
him,  but  he  turned  her  down  every  time  she 
tried,"  chuckled  the  man  who  lost  on  Felix. 
"She  nailed  him  for  a  theatre  party,  and  he 
never  showed  up.  We  waited  a  half-hour,  and 
telephoned  all  over  town.  Not  a  trace  of  him. 
I  believe  he'd  gone  off  to  the  circus  with  Le 
Grand's  little  boy." 


The  Ways  of  the  Wicked        39 

"You'll  get  cold  food  for  being  behind  time. 
These  dinners  are  punctual,"  Albert  Yule 
scolded,  as  the  hansom  jolted  over  intersecting 
car-tracks. 

"Honestly,  I  didn't  know  it  was  so  late." 
Felix  showed  penitence.  "But  those  men  were 
immense." 

"Your  tastes  are  more  catholic  even  than 
mine,"  Albert  confessed.  "Or  else  you  are 
only  being  perverse.  I  should  never  have  ex- 
pected you  to  take  up  with  that  gang.  Some 
of  them  may  be  good  enough  for  games,  till 
the  whiskey  gets  in  on  their  .  .  ." 

"Don't  worry,  old  man."  Felix  was  never 
unperceptive.  "You  needn't  bother  about  my 
drinking.  'I  really  don't  like  it." 

"I  never  meant  that."  Mr.  Yule  was  not 
quite  sincere.  What  Felix  said  was  no  doubt 
true,  in  the  main,  but  at  times  he  had  been 
known — Albert  went  on:  "I  should  have 
thought  they'd  merely  bore  you." 

"Bore?  Oh,  Lord,  no!"  Felix  waxed  en- 
thusiastic. "They  are  splendid,  so  natural, 


40         The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

no  pretence.  If  you  don't  know  their  way, 
you're  wrong.  That's  all,  so  simple.  They 
don't  try  to  impress  you.  Now  there  are 
people — that  awful  old  codger  who  will  talk 
about  the  London  club  he  goes  to,  and  how  he 
once  saw  Carrillac  at  Homburg." 

"That's  natural,  too;  natural  to  him,"  Al- 
bert pointed  out.  "If  he  had  a  cousin  a  duke, 
he'd  expect  you  to  mention  it." 

Some  dozen  men  were  already  at  table  when 
Yule  and  Felix  made  their  way  into  a  low- 
ceilinged  room  with  long  mirrors  at  either  end. 
A  physician  was  telling  some  curious  fact 
about  the  Chinese  methods  of  fly-fishing. 
With  upturned  sleeve  he  showed  a  particular 
twist  of  the  wrist  employed  by  a  Celestial  Am- 
bassador. 

The  late  comers  found  their  seats,  and  fell 
with  appetite  upon  an  excellent  plain  dinner. 

An  Orientalist  branched  off  with  some  de- 
tails of  fly-fishing  as  revealed  in  a  lately  dis- 
covered palimpsest.  The  talk  flowed  on,  gay, 
easy,  full  of  first-hand  experience.  Here  sat 


The  Ways  of  the  Wicked        4 1 

a  young  war  correspondent,  fresh  from  the 
East,  full  of  the  white  man's  benevolence  to 
subject  races.  There  a  young  clerk  whose 
delicate  gift  of  lyric  verse  had  survived  a  life 
of  drudgery  and  care.  The  newspaper  con- 
tingent dined  with  one  eye  on  the  clock.  A 
musician,  vague,  idealistic,  flung  the  bridle  to 
his  hobby — an  occult  bond  between  rhythm 
and  virtue.  The  newspaper  men  rallied  about 
Wagner,  the  Orientalist  prophesied  a  revolu- 
tion caused  by  the  rapidly  encroaching  Asiatic 
scale.  "Do  you  know  gipsy  music?"  Felix 
suddenly  asked.  "It  certainly  has  the  rhythm 
which  is  not  virtue,  I  suppose,  Gather?" 

"I  always  find  it  difficult  to  believe  that 
gipsies  have  a  genuine  music,  or  language," 
the  fly  expert  put  in.  "Hybrids  and  tinkers." 

"But  they  have."  Felix  grew  eager.  He 
told  of  strange  wanderings  in  Danubian  prov- 
inces, of  sheepskin-clad  men  and  half-savage 
women  coming  down  from  the  mountains  to 
dance  and  sing  about  his  camp-fire.  "Gipsies 
really  know  how  to  live,"  he  exclaimed  with 


42         The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

growing  excitement.  "They  persist  in  their 
own  untrammelled  ways,  following  their  own 
promptings,  travelling  like  kings  in  their 
own  carriages  while  we,  earth-born  crea- 
tures .  .  ." 

"He  doesn't  look  exactly  earth-born,  to- 
night," whispered  the  minor  poet  to  a  news- 
paper man  who  scoffed  aloud : 

"While  we  crawl  along  at  a  worm's  pace  in 
the  Limited  Express!" 

Felix  joined  in  the  general  laugh  at  his  ex- 
pense, and,  eschewing  rhapsody  for  the  rest  of 
the  evening,  lapsed  to  the  plane  of  mere  lis- 
tener, but  listening  with  a  zest  which  loosened 
every  tongue. 

"Confound  that  Smart  Alec  for  interrupt- 
ing you,"  Gather  grumbled  to  Felix,  as  they 
were  putting  on  hats  and  coats.  "Could  you 
whistle  one  of  those  tunes  now  ?" 

Felix  nodded  assent.    "But  not  here!" 

"Stop  at  my  place,  there's  a  piano.  I'd  give 
anything  to  get  an  air,  just  while  your  talk  is 
fresh  in  my  head." 


The  Ways  of  the  Wicked        43 

"Yule,"  Felix  explained,  "I'm  going  with 
Gather.  Will  you  come  along?" 

"Too  late,  I've  had  talk  enough  for  one 
night."  Albert  buttoned  his  fur-lined  coat. 
"So  have  you  for  that  matter.  You  look 
played  out." 

"No,"  Felix  pleaded.  "No !  This  is  good. 
I  feel  alive." 

"Better  go  to  bed,"  muttered  Yule,  "and  not 
sit  up  till  morning  talking  like  an  archangel." 

Felix  flushed  with  displeasure.  His  whole 
life  long  his  looks  had  brought  him  privileges, 
heaped  them  upon  him,  which  he  would  have 
rather  sought  and  struggled  for  himself.  If 
he  did  look  like  an  archangel  it  was  deadly  of- 
fence even  to  hint  that  he  talked  like  one. 
With  a  short  nod  to  Albert  he  strolled  off  with 
the  delighted  musician. 

There  may  be,  of  course,  many  respectable 
reasons  for  a  man's  reaching  his  inn  afoot  at 
the  same  hour  when  other  people  are  driving 
home  from  balls.  Nevertheless,  when  one 
Mrs.  Wheatland  and  her  daughter  Angela, 


44         The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

alighting  from  their  carriage,  met  Felix  in  the 
hotel  vestibule,  noting  the  hour  and  his  air  of 
absent-minded  elation,  the  mother  drew  back 
with  disapproval.  He  had  not  been  at  the  ball, 
it  was  nearly  five  o'clock !  If  she  had  been  told 
by  an  eye-witness,  Mrs.  Wheatland  would  not 
have  believed  that  he  had  spent  the  time  since 
midnight  whistling  odd  barbaric  melodies,  and 
discussing  a  few  such  trifles  as  time  and  eter- 
nity, with  a  crack-brained  fiddler  named 
Harold  Gather. 

Feeling  a  sudden  chill  return  to  earth,  in  the 
gaudy  hotel  rotunda,  he  audibly  ordered 
whiskey  to  be  sent  to  his  room.  This  Mrs. 
Wheatland  heard,  and  drew  her  own  conclu- 
sions. "It  is  quite  evident,"  she  remarked  re- 
provingly to  her  daughter,  "that  Mr.  Gwynne 
needs  no  more  of  that  to-night." 

Offering  no  opinion,  Angela  turned  wake- 
ful eyes  for  a  long,  searching  gaze  at  the  re- 
treating and  unconscious  back  of  Felix 
Gwynne.  Little  Miss  Angela  was  not  in  per- 
fect accord  with  the  maternal  standard. 


CHAPTER  IV 
fcambs  anO  (Boats 

IN  the  beginning  Felix  felt  only  amusement 
at  the  attitude  he  inspired;  then,  suddenly, 
he  found  his  nerves  on  edge.  Sheep  and  goats, 
ranged  in  two  well-defined  bodies,  made  clear 
his  place  beyond  shadow  of  doubt.  The  goats 
hailed  him  as  a  new  and  exciting  member  of 
their  community,  while  not  a  bell-wether  in 
the  opposing  flock  but  looked  doubtful  and  an- 
noyed if  he  so  much  as  drew  within  bowing 
distance.  If  his  taste  had  inclined  to  flirtation 
with  other  men's  wives,  opportunities  were 
practically  unlimited,  but  the  obvious  cold- 
bloodedness of  such  diversion  offended  him. 
With  no  little  tendency  towards  gaiety  and 
easy  manners,  he  still  resented  being  invariably 
told  off  to  the  most  decolletee  woman  present, 
and  being  unfailingly  greeted  by  proffered 

45 


46         The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

cocktails,  invariably  having  the  limit  raised  if 
he  sat  down  to  a  game  of  cards.  Did  these 
people  think  that,  to  be  witty,  a  story  must 
needs  be  outrageous?  And  if  their  women 
considered  him  so  very  lax,  why  did  the  men 
so  endlessly  trust  him? 

Unfortunately,  steadfastness  of  purpose  was 
hardly  among  his  virtues,  and  before  long,  the 
hospitable,  friendly  goats  secured  all  of  the 
poet's  leisure;  all,  that  is,  not  claimed  by  Mrs. 
Le  Grand  and  Albert  Yule. 

One  night  at  the  opera  he  found  himself 
close  to  little  Miss  Wheatland,  not  in  the  same 
party,  however.  Though  decidedly  recalci- 
trant, Angela  was  effectively  rounded  up 
among  her  own  kind,  and  Mr.  Gwynne's  host- 
ess ranked  well  forward  with  the  friskiest  of 
youthful  matrons.  Through  one  act  Felix  and 
the  girl  sat  elbow  to  elbow  on  either  side  of  a 
brass  dividing  rod.  When  the  lights  went  up, 
some  spirit  of  mischief  prompted  Mrs.  Dar- 
ling to  introduce  him,  possibly  a  desire  to  be 
avenged  for  the  glances  cast  by  Mrs.  Wheat- 


Lambs  and  Goats  47 

land  on  a  shoulder  strap,  large,  no  doubt,  for 
diamonds,  but  as  raiment  decidedly  inade- 
quate. 

Angela  had  fluffy,  golden  hair,  real  fluff, 
real  gold,  soft  and  rebellious  as  a  baby's  curls. 
Big  and  melancholy  grey  eyes  looked  out  of  a 
small  pale  face.  Beyond  this,  she  seemed  a 
slim  little  girl,  nothing  more.  She  raised  those 
eyes  to  Felix  without  a  shade  of  coquetry,  but 
in  a  queer  appealing  way,  as  if,  finding  herself 
in  distress,  she  hoped  any  stranger  might 
chance  to  prove  a  friend.  She  met  his  sugges- 
tion that  they  should  walk  in  the  foyer  with  a 
moment's  hesitation;  the  belligerent  swish  of 
Mrs.  Wheatland's  fan  hardened  her  resolu- 
tion. With  a  wilful  movement  of  her  pretty 
head  she  rose  and  joined  him  in  the  aisle. 
Amused  at  this  byplay,  Felix  sauntered  at  her 
side.  It  was  hard  to  talk,  jostled  as  they  were 
by  parties  of  men  and  girls,  musicians  scurry- 
ing to  and  fro,  groups  of  reporters  visibly  ex- 
changing items  on  jewels  and  costumes,  a 
prima  donna  using  her  free  night  to  see 


48         The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

"Lohengrin"  for  the  thousandth  time,  a  dress- 
maker eagerly  scanning  toilettes. 

A  rosy-cheeked  girl,  common  and  loudly- 
dressed,  passed  on  the  arm  of  a  young  man  pos- 
sessing all  the  style  and  confidence  of  a  suc- 
cessful floor-walker.  She  and  Angela  bowed. 
The  strange  girl  for  all  her  vulgarity  had  a 
frank  air  of  good  nature.  She  was  distinctly 
a  personality,  rather  alarming  but  not  without 
attraction.  Felix  grew  sensible  that  Miss 
Wheatland's  footsteps  lagged,  then,  in  an  eddy 
of  the  crowd,  the  strange  girl  had  drifted  up 
to  them.  She  gave  a  questioning  look,  an- 
swered by  the  slightest  affirmative  sweep  of 
Miss  Wheatland's  lashes.  Felix  considerately 
began  to  study  a  contralto  and  her  aunt  till  the 
singer  rolled  huge  black  eyes  too  obviously  for 
his  benefit.  Turning  back  to  his  companion  he 
found  the  stranger  nowhere  in  sight,  but  Miss 
Angela,  blushing  furiously,  was  thrusting  a 
letter  into  the  bosom  of  her  pretty  fluffy 
bodice.  Again  Felix  looked  away,  vaguely 
amused  yet  sorry.  Though  evidently  naughty, 


Lambs  and  Goats  49 

this  little  lady  was  not  hardened  or  skilful  in 
wrong-doing.  And  then  he  caught  a  hint  of 
unshed  tears  not  far  behind  Miss  Angela's  long 
dark  lashes.  To  cover  her  embarrassment  he 
chattered  platitudes  about  the  fat  tenor,  man- 
aging to  protect  her  from  hovering  youths  till 
a  loud  gong  summoned  promenaders  to  their 
seats. 

On  leaving  the  lobby,  she  suddenly  broke 
her  silence,  tremblingly,  with  emotion : 
"Thank  you,  Mr.  Gwynne!" 

That  was  all,  but  already  he  felt  her  freed 
from  the  shadow  of  vulgar  intrigue.  The 
child's  tone  showed  genuine  pain.  "Let  me 
know  if  I  can  help,"  he  managed  to  whisper, 
before  depositing  her  under  her  mother's  wing. 

Angela  would  certainly  never  have  gone  so 
far  as  to  let  him  know.  Indeed,  it  was  quite 
beyond  his  power  to  furnish  tangible  aid,  since 
Mrs.  Wheatland  could  hardly  incline  to  re- 
ceive Felix  Gwynne's  remonstrances  upon  her 
attitude  towards  Tommy  Gordon.  Really, 
there  was  much  to  say  on  the  mother's  side. 


50         The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

Angela,  not  yet  twenty,  must  needs  bestow  her 
affections  on  a  beggarly  lieutenant  of  artillery, 
belonging  to  unknown  people  in  an  unfashion- 
able quarter  of  her  own  city.  And  the  provok- 
ing child  furthermore  refused  to  take  the 
slightest  interest  in  life,  because  of  an  insignifi- 
cant young  man,  stationed  at  Luzon  or  Min- 
danao, some  place  "out  there." 

A  promise  had  been  wrung  from  Angela  to 
wait  till  she  was  twenty-one.  Having  given 
her  word,  the  girl  was  filled  with  regret.  Sup- 
pose he  should  die !  Her  opinion  of  Tommy's 
attraction  was  such  that  it  seemed  only  likely 
for  him  fatally  to  draw  bullets,  poisoned  ar- 
rows, and  tropical  fevers.  Neither  was 
Tommy  to  write  to  her,  but  in  her  present  state 
of  irritation  and  forlornness,  she  contrived  to 
appease  her  hunger  for  news  by  an  occasional 
glimpse  of  letters  addressed  by  him  to  Miss 
Charlotte  Tone,  a  "bachelor  girl,"  "touch 
operator,"  and  Angela's  guardian  angel.  A 
chance  acquaintance,  made  in  a  blizzard,  never 
countenanced  by  Mrs.  Wheatland,  "Charlie" 


Lambs  and  Goats  5  i 

Tone,  from  sheer  good-will,  had  become  a  go- 
between  for  these  luckless  lovers.  Mrs. 
Wheatland  persisted  in  treating  the  whole 
matter  as  a  childish  fancy,  sure  to  be  forgotten 
if  intelligently  ignored.  She  asked  her  fa- 
vourite dull  young  man  to  dine  at  least  once  a 
week,  thereby  transforming  him,  in  Angela's 
esteem,  from  bore  to  enemy,  and  never  per- 
mitted reference  to  the  name  of  Tommy  Gor- 
don. 

Little  Angela  had  spirit  and  a  heart.  Con- 
sequently, when  she  met  Felix  Gwynne  at  the 
public  library,  one  chilly  December  morning, 
her  grey  eyes  darkened  with  pleasure  as  the 
memory  of  their  former  meeting  brought  a  fine 
shade  of  rose  to  her  white  cheeks. 

Felix  was  heartily  tired  of  making  his  choice 
between  fast  women  and  colonial  history.  He 
would  have  preferred  the  absence  of  Angela's 
leashed  poodle,  a  restless  dog,  but  in  spite  ot 
this  drawback,  he  welcomed  the  sight  of  a  per- 
son who  struck  his  fancy  as  both  pretty  and 
genuine. 


52         The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

To  her  he  represented  sympathy  and  forbid- 
den fruit.  She  would  have  felt  sharp  disap- 
pointment, had  he  not  followed  her  from  the 
building.  At  first  they  talked  of  the  poodle. 
Then  she  shyly  mentioned  having  heard  of 
him  from  Adelaide  Noel  and  blushed  at 
her  own  stupidity.  Of  course  everybody 
had  heard  of  him.  Were  not  his  pictures 
in  half  the  magazines,  his  poems  on  every 
bookstall  ? 

"Miss  Wheatland,"  he  hesitated.  This  was 
no  case  for  laughing  remonstrances,  for  teas- 
ing. The  child's  thin  face  spoke  of  real 
trouble;  still,  upon  what  ground  could  he  in- 
vite her  confidence  ? 

Angela  met  him  half-way.  "You  want  to 
speak  to  me  about  the  other  night?"  She 
verged  on  defiance. 

"Yes,"  nothing  could  have  been  gentler 
than  his  manner,  "if  you  will  let  me?" 

She  merely  nodded. 

"You  shouldn't  be  doing  that  sort  of  thing, 
you  know."  The  paternal  ring  of  his  voice 


Lambs  and  Goats  53 

surprised  himself,  but  Felix  had  perfect  respect 
for  the  standard  of  a  nice  young  girl. 

"That's  all  very  well!"  Angela  disen- 
tangled the  poodle  from  a  fire  plug;  "but  when 
a  man  wants  to  do  anything,  he  just  does  it. 
No  one  ever  stops  him.  As  if  I  enjoyed  be- 
having like  a  common  chambermaid !"  she 
ended  aggressively. 

"Is  there  no  other  way?"  He  at  once 
granted  the  gravity  of  her  case. 

And  then  she  told  him  all  about  it, — the  out- 
lines, that  is, — without  sentiment,  in  dry  little 
phrases.  There  was  no  word  of  love,  of  emo- 
tion, merely,  "My  mother  does  not  consider  me 
engaged  to  Lieutenant  Gordon.  I  only  knew 
where  he  was  from  the  papers.  When  Miss 
Tone  sent  him  a  letter  he  answered  it,  just  to 
her,  not  me."  She  spoke  looking  straight  in 
front  of  her,  the  little  head  held  very  erect. 
All  at  once  she  broke  out  impulsively :  "Don't 
you  suppose  I'd  rather  be  walking  with  him 
openly,  at  this  very  minute,  than  reading  a 
letter  to  another  woman  on  the  sly?  Perhaps 


54         The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

that  is  not  exactly  polite  to  you,"  she  added, 
with  a  smile  which  made  him  see  hidden  possi- 
bilities of  fun  and  cheerfulness  in  the  perse- 
cuted little  lady. 

"If  he  ever  gets  leave,"  this  was  the  best 
Felix  could  offer,  "let  me  know.  I'll  try  to 
help." 

Angela  thanked  him  with  tears  in  her  eyes, 
the  child  was  worn  and  lonely.  This  helping 
hand,  this  sympathy,  fairly  conquered  her  de- 
fiant state  of  reserve.  Felix  himself  all  at  once 
felt  a  queer  wistfulness  at  the  sight  of  her  utter 
devotion  to  a  commonplace  young  soldier, 
probably  possessing  little  to  recommend  him 
beyond  a  pair  of  broad  shoulders  and  the 
glamour  of  his  uniform.  The  simple,  passion- 
less love  of  a  girl  seemed  a  precious  posses- 
sion. There  had  come  into  Angela's  eyes 
a  look,  quickly  veiled,  which  made  him 
more  than  envious  of  Lieutenant  Tommy 
Gordon. 

In  spite  of  a  butterfly  exterior,  Angela  was 
stable;  her  feeling  for  Tommy  waxed  loyal  as 


Lambs  and  Goats  55 

a  fixed  star.  Having  once  cared,  this  slim 
creature  cared  forever.  There  could  be  only 
Tommy !  But  she  had  also  treasures  of  friend- 
ship and  gratitude.  She  would  gladly  have 
perished  for  the  sake  of  Felix  Gwynne.  This 
not  being  exactly  called  for,  she  promptly  con- 
stituted herself  his  champion,  scouting  all  tales 
to  his  discredit,  and  setting  him  down  as  a  man 
grievously  misunderstood. 

"Do  you  know,  Adelaide,"  she  confided,  a 
few  days  later,  "people  don't  appreciate  Mr. 
Gwynne.  All  those  horrid  women  have  their 
claws  on  him,  but  I  don't  really  believe  it  is 
what  he  likes." 

"He  is  old  enough  to  choose."  Adelaide 
was  non-committal. 

Angela  shook  her  fluffy  head.  Though 
younger,  by  right  of  a  wider  experience  she 
secretly  felt  far  older  and  wiser  than  Ade- 
laide. 

"That  kind  of  man  is  different,"  she 
sagely  explained.  "Poets  are  not  sensible 
about  little  things.  I  think  a  nice  girl  could 


56         The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

influence  him  a  lot.  He  is  so  considerate.  I 
hate  to  see  that  Mrs.  Darling  sprawling  all 
over  him." 

Adelaide  made  a  gesture  of  disgust,  but  re- 
called with  satisfaction  his  perfectly  decorous 
manner  towards  herself.  Whether  aroused  by 
Angela's  view,  or  because  the  halo  of  mysteri- 
ous evil  had  attraction,  even  for  her,  when 
next  they  met,  she  greeted  Felix  with  a  certain 
tempered  friendliness. 

The  most  incongruous  events  usually  spring 
from  entirely  natural  causes.  Felix  had 
grown  tired  of  sophisticated  women,  also  his 
vanity  had  finally  been  nettled  by  the  evident 
opposition  offered  him  by  chaperons  and  du- 
ennas. The  possibilities  of  a  young  girl's  un- 
wavering affection,  as  shown  in  Angela,  had 
opened  to  him  new  ideals  of  life  and  happi- 
ness. 

Adelaide,  on  her  part,  grew  to  look  on  him 
as  a  brand  to  be  snatched  from  the  burning. 
Wherever  his  wider  view  clashed  with  prec- 
edent as  she  knew  and  honoured  it,  without 


Lambs  and  Goats  57 

misgiving,  she  set  this  laxity  down  to  bad  ex- 
ample and  ignorance. 

When  a  conscientious  young  girl  finds  a 
mission  in  a  starry-eyed  poet,  when  to  the  joy 
of  an  enchanting  lover  is  added  the  glory  of 
becoming  a  sanctified,  female  Perseus,  the  end 
is  not  far  to  seek.  It  went  quickly,  all  the 
quicker,  that  to  Felix  Adelaide  also  appeared 
as  a  field,  or  rather,  as  Andromeda  chained  to 
a  rock,  menaced  by  a  devouring  monster  of 
dulness  and  prejudice. 

He  grew  impatient  to  rescue  this  gentle 
maiden  from  cramping,  soulless  bonds  of  cus- 
tom and  cowardice.  He  would  show  her  life 
and  beauty.  Together  they  would  see  new 
countries.  She  would  learn  to  know  his 
friends,  to  speak  his  language.  Warmed  and 
quickened,  she  would  still  bring  him  her  unde- 
filed  treasures  of  maidenliness.  It  was  only  a 
matter  of  weeks! 

Even  then  it  might  never  have  come  about, 
but  for  the  unconscious  aid  of  Mrs.  Darling. 
After  skimming  through  his  poems,  this  enter- 


58         The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

prising  lady  was  entirely  convinced  that  Felix 
could  and  gladly  would  furnish  her  with  a 
whole  set  of  new  and  delightful  sensations. 
To  do  her  justice,  she  would  have  greatly  pre- 
ferred being  obliged  to  moderate  his  advances, 
but  as  her  mere  casual  propinquity  (the  same 
country-house  sheltered  them  both  for  a  Sun- 
day) failed  to  elicit  any  unmanageable  symp- 
toms, she  proceeded  to  find  herself  in  his  path 
as  often  as  permitted  by  the  easy  conditions  of 
a  married  people's  house-party.  Alas,  poor 
lady !  When  they  dispersed  on  Monday  morn- 
ing not  so  much  as  a  tender  hand  pressure 
stood  to  her  credit,  not  an  encroaching  glance ! 
And  as  for  further  endearments,  not  by  a  per- 
fect fusillade  of  eyebeams,  not  by  ambuscades 
in  favouring  corners,  not  by  leaning  over  the 
arm  of  his  chair  till  her  shoulders  almost 
grazed  his  cheek,  had  she  been  able  to  provoke 
so  much  as  one  look  of  gratified  conscious- 
ness. 

Her  methods  might  be  of  the  crudest,  but 
with  a  man  whose  verses  discoursed  so  ravish- 


Lambs  and  Goats  59 

ingly  upon  the  potency  of  bodily  charms,  she 
had  judged  any  indirect  appeal  to  be  the  most 
thriftless  waste  of  time  and  opportunity.  To 
her  utter  discomfiture  Felix  was  merely  polite 
and — slippery ! 

How  could  the  poor  lady  guess  that  what- 
ever sensations  she  might  arouse,  he  would 
never  turn  for  their  gratification  to  a  woman 
who  offended  his  taste;  that  poking  her  lips, 
her  shoulders,  her  bejewelled  white  hands  at 
him  for  a  whole  mortal  Sunday  merely 
clinched  his  determination  to  spend  the  after- 
noon of  his  deliverance  with  Adelaide  Noel ! 

The  Noel  chairs  did  not  lend  themselves  to 
ease  or  informality,  but  the  relief  of  not  having 
to  be  on  his  guard  was  so  immense  that  Felix 
missed  neither  cigarettes  nor  the  relaxation  of 
deep-cushioned  lounges. 

He  could  be  indefinitely  and  peacefully 
silent.  Adelaide  was  never  restless  or  curious. 
She  would  never  give  silence  a  personal  turn. 
Her  gentleness  and  restraint  filled  him  with 
quiet  content.  They  seemed  exquisitely  at 


60         The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

home  together.  Suddenly  it  came  over  him 
that  in  a  few  minutes  he  must  go,  he  had  been 
with  her  for  hours.  The  idea  of  separation 
was  preposterous.  He  wished  to  be  with  her, 
uninterruptedly.  They  were  dining  at  the 
same  house,  but  he  hardly  relished  the  pros- 
pect of  seeing  her  between  two  other  men,  at 
the  far  end  of  a  long  table.  People  never 
had  the  sense  to  put  him  at  her  side. 

Without  giving  the  matter  much  conscious 
thought,  Felix  was  in  every  direction  a  con- 
noisseur. In  all  things  he  valued  the  good  of 
its  kind,  and  with  little  experience  of  it,  he 
felt  quite  certain  that  of  her  particular  kind 
Adelaide  was  an  unflawed  and  beautiful  ex- 
ample .  .  .  To  have  her  gaze  into  your  eyes 
would  be  worth  while;  to  quicken  her  tranquil 
heart  beat  .  .  . 

He  had  watched  her  so  intently  that  even 
Adelaide's  composure  wavered.  Her  hands 
lay  motionless  on  her  knee,  her  still  body  kept 
its  easy  poise,  but  with  a  movement  of  the  head 
and  neck  which  he  had  learned  to  know  and 


Lambs  and  Goats  61 

watch  for,  she  slowly  turned  towards  him  a 
look  of  gentle  inquiry. 

The  flash  with  which  he  met  her  glance 
made  her  quickly  stand  up,  with  a  natural  im- 
pulse for  flight,  and  this  brought  him  in  an  in- 
stant to  her  side. 

They  stood  quite  close,  with  indrawn  breath, 
facing  each  other  with  truthful  eyes  .  .  . 

And  then  Adelaide  felt  herself  engulfed 
with  strange,  new  knowledge.  Never  had  she 
imagined  it  would  come  like  this  .  .  .  He 
had  never  even  spoken  a  word  of  love  to 
her,  never  asked  her  to  marry  him!  Where 
was  the  long,  slow  courtship  of  her  imagin- 
ings? Yet  she  had  no  doubts!  It  was  right, 
marvellously,  surprisingly  right  that  he  should 
take  her  in  his  arms,  kiss  her — go  on  kissing 
her — divinely  right.  Of  that  she  felt  quite 
sure! 

Presently  he  let  her  go  all  but  her  hands — 
.she  stood  at  arm's  length  from  him. 

He  was  looking  at  her  curiously,  half  smil- 
ing. "Aren't  you  ashamed — "  she  had  never 


62         The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

imagined  anything  like  the  tenderness  of  his 
voice — "just  to  behave  like  a  natural  girl? 
They  haven't  been  able  to  spoil  you,  to  make 
you  prudent,  wary  ...  ?" 

"Wary!"  It  was  pretty  to  see  the  pride  of 
her  upheld  chin,  in  spite  of  a  shyness  that  could 
not  meet  his  eye.  "I'm  never  wary !" 

"And  whenever  you — love — a  man,"  Felix 
went  on  in  that  same  voice  that  seemed  to  melt 
her  heart  within  her — "do  you  let  him  take 
you  SO' — and  this — and  this  ...  ?" 

"Whenever!"  Adelaide  trembled  in  his 
arms.  "But  it  can  only  happen  once  .  .  ." 

"And  you  trust — a  man?" 

"A  man!  You,  Felix!"  His  name  came 
from  her  lips  quite  simply. 

"Can't  we  be  married  before  dinner?"  He 
seemed  perfectly  serious. 

"Oh,  Felix!"  She  gently  drew  away  from 
him. 

"But  don't  you  see,"  he  urged,  "presently 
you'll  say  'Time  to  dress!'  Then  you'll  close 
your  door  on  the  tip  of  my  nose,  and  later 


Lambs  and  Goats  63 

there'll  be  people,  and  later  you'll  go  home — 
and  I'll  go  home — and  there  are  things  we 
want  to — say !  And  there'll  be  rows  and  rows 
of  brick  walls  between  your  lips  and  mine, 
dear  .  .  ." 

"Please,  Felix!"  she  interrupted  him. 

"But  if  we  get  married  ...    !" 

This  time  she  laughed  a  little  and  took 
refuge  behind  her  parents'  wishes. 

By  way  of  expediting  matters  Felix  de- 
clared his  unalterable  resolve  not  to  leave  the 
house  till  he  should  in  due  form  have  de- 
manded Adelaide's  hand  in  marriage  from 
Colonel  Noel! 


CHAPTER  V 
44  poor 


"A  I  ^HERE  was  nothing  downright  objec- 
X.  tionable,  nothing  you  could  take  hold  of, 
in  his  way  of  asking  me  for  her,  except  his  not 
seeming  to  realise  that  we  shouldn't  like  it," 
Colonel  Noel  confessed  to  his  wife.  "But 
upon  my  word,  I'm  surprised  at  Adelaide's 
fancying  the  fellow." 

Mrs.  Noel  uttered  soft  maternal  murmur- 
ings.  While  by  no  means  trusting  Felix,  she 
could  not  but  feel  the  distinction  of  an  alliance 
with  the  last  Gwynne  of  Chastellux.  Then  the 
mere  fact  of  his  seeking  Adelaide  suggested  the 
germination  of  better  instincts,  the  gentle- 
manly asserting  itself  above  the  poetic.  A 
mother-in-law-about-to-be  is  naturally  opti- 
mistic. Through  vicarious  marriage  only  can 
she  reach  the  dignity  of  grandmotherhood. 
64 


"  Poor  Lady!"  65 

"He's  very  handsome,"  she  finally  offered, 
"and,  of  course,  we  know  just  who  he  is." 

"Handsome  in  a  way."  The  Colonel  saw  no 
virtue  in  a  mere  fortuitous  combination  of  fea- 
ture, and  for  some  unfathomed  reason,  mas- 
culine yearnings  seldom  extend  to  possible 
grandchildren.  "If  you  like  that  kind.  But  I 
should  hardly  have  expected  Adelaide's  head 
to  be  turned.  He's  like — like" — the  Colonel 
here  made  the  one  imaginative  effort  of  his  life 
— "he's  like  sweet  native  champagne,  Geor- 
gina,  or — new  Madeira.  We  shan't  know 
what  to  do  with  him  in  the  family.  Can  I 
quote  poems  to  him  after  dinner,  over  our 
cigars  ?" 

"Cousin  Emily  Laurence  says  he  talks  well 
on  almost  any  topic.  We  must  try  to  draw 
him  out  to-morrow  night,  when  so  many 
strange  cousins  will  be  here  to  inspect  him. 
You  know,  dear,"  Mrs.  Noel  gently  reminded 
him,  "how  you  enjoyed  telling  stories  to  Mr. 
Lowell,  when  we  breakfasted  at  the  Embassy 
in  London.  He  was  quite  a  well-known  poet, 


66         The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

and  a  perfect  man  of  the  world  too,  just  like 
everybody  else." 

The  Colonel  shook  a  pessimistic  head.  "Do 
you  really  think  she  can  care  for  him?"  This 
idea  proved  difficult  of  assimilation. 

"Adelaide  is  never  a  girl  to  dwell  much  on 
her  feelings,  even  to  me,"  Mrs.  Noel  owned. 
"But  if  you  will  notice,  restrained  and  digni- 
fied as  she  is,  she  certainly  does  like  to  slip  off 
alone  with  him  occasionally.  And  her  in- 
fluence over  him  is  really  beautiful.  He  is 
doing  whatever  she  wants  about  the  wedding, 
the  invitations  and  all  that." 

"Whatever  she  wants!  I  should  think  so!" 
Colonel  Noel  fairly  snorted.  "Isn't  the  man 
going  to  get  Adelaide?" 

In  the  interest  of  family  harmony,  Mrs. 
Noel  thought  well  to  suppress  Felix's  inclina- 
tion for  a  hasty  trip  to  the  mayor's  office,  or 
any  speedy  and  informal  way  of  tying  the 
knot.  Adelaide  herself  truly  felt  no  wish  for 
hurrying  into  marriage.  A  genuine  frosty 
maidenliness  possessed  her,  the  unrealised  idea 


"  Poor  Lady  !  "  67 

of  surrender  was  vaguely  painful.  To  leave  a 
home  where  she  had  known  perfect  happiness 
promised  a  grievous  wrench.  She  would  have 
chosen  to  wait — a  year,  two  years;  there  was 
no  need  for  haste.  But  Felix's  unguarded 
state  unconsciously  appealed  to  every  latent 
maternal  instinct.  His  irregular  bouts  of  ap- 
plication, the  days  on  which  he  came  to  her  fe- 
verish and  restless ;  the  weeks  during  which  he 
would  not  work ;  the  periods  when  he  vanished 
from  sight  to  emerge  with  pale  face  and  blaz- 
ing eyes,  in  a  quiver  with  the  passionate  ex- 
citement of  production — all  this  aroused  her 
womanly  sense  of  order.  She  must  help  him. 
He  stood  in  need  of  a  companion  to  remind 
him  of  engagements,  to  see  that  he  kept  to  rea- 
sonable hours,  that  he  ate,  worked,  and 
amused  himself  with  measure  and  system. 
This  feeling  produced  in  her  a  remote  but 
gracious  tenderness,  which  softened  all  reserve 
and  inspired  him  to  bear  with  patience  the  in- 
terval between  their  formal  betrothal  and  the 
wedding  day. 


68         The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

He  had  quickly  succumbed  to  the  Noel  as- 
sertion that  anything  short  of  a  church,  a 
bishop,  and  eight  bridesmaids  would  show 
lack  of  respect  for  Adelaide.  He  bore  every- 
thing on  that  trying  day  with  admirably  con- 
trolled restiveness,  under  the  eyes  of  an  as- 
sembled throng  of  selected  lambs;  not  a  goat 
was  bidden  to  wish  him  joy ! 

"Aren't  you  going  to?"  Bessy  Le  Grand 
whispered  to  Angela.  This  young  lady  had  a 
natural  taste  for  kissing  which  seized  every 
decorous  opportunity  of  outlet.  "I  suppose 
Adelaide  won't  mind,  just  for  once." 

"I  don't  know!"  Angela's  kisses  had  been 
all  for  Tommy,  but  something  in  Felix's  air 
went  to  her  heart.  The  sense  of  endurance,  of 
waiting  till  the  end  of  this  tiresome  ceremony, 
she  saw  it  so  plainly.  How  could  Adelaide 
subject  him  to  it!  Pegasus  as  a  trick 
mule! 

"Dear  Angela!"  Adelaide  kissed  her  with 
affection.  "I  shall  miss  you  very  much." 

This  note  jarred  upon  the  girl's  overstrung 


"  Poor  Lady!  '  69 

feelings.  Could  she  herself  miss  any  one,  re- 
member her  dearest  friend,  if  she  were  free  to 
link  her  arm  in  Tommy's  and  go  forth  into  the 
world  at  his  side  ?  And  Felix,  with  the  face  of 
a  morning  star!  How  could  his  wife  think  of 
anything  else  on  earth?  Wife!  The  very 
word  brought  flaming  colour  to  Angela's  pale 
cheeks. 

Felix  was  holding  her  hand.  "The  same  to 
you,"  he  whispered.  "I  have  every  kind  of 
conspiracy  up  my  sleeve." 

"Don't  mind  about  me,  now.  Just  be 
happy!"  Angela  felt  a  sudden  catch  in  her 
throat. 

Adelaide  was  conscious  of  a  queer  thrill,  not 
pleasant,  as  Felix,  with  tender  eyes,  kissed  her 
little  cousin.  It  was  all  very  well  for  Bessy  Le 
Grand  to  bounce  up  with  a  vigorous  embrace, 
but  Angela  blushed  and  blinked  away  a  sus- 
picion of  tears  from  her  long  lashes.  Adelaide 
knew  of  Tommy,  but  he  seemed  a  shadowy 
creature,  far  less  substantial  than  Mrs.  Wheat- 
land's  sturdy  opposition.  That  love  for  a  man 


70         The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

should  make  a  nice  girl  ready  to  cast  off  every- 
thing she  had  known  before,  was  simply  be- 
yond Adelaide's  power  to  accept.  Life  should 
not  be  like  that!  It  must  be  full,  tranquil, 
blended  of  many  strands;  she  could  not  con- 
ceive that  to  Angela  the  whole  world  resolved 
itself  into  Tommy,  with  a  hazy  background  of 
Miss  Tone  and  Felix.  Any  one  who  was  kind 
and  promised  help. 

Consequently  the  blush,  the  unshed  tears, 
her  husband's  sudden  animation  cast  a  trifling 
shadow  athwart  her  calm  content. 

But  for  this  unnoticed  flaw,  nothing  could 
exceed  the  perfection  of  Felix's  demeanour, 
until  the  pair  were  joined  at  the  railway  sta- 
tion by  Adelaide's  elderly  nurse.  At  this  a 
certain  feline  contraction  of  lip  and  eyebrow 
should  have  warned  Adelaide  that  the  poet's 
limit  of  endurance  had  been  slightly  over- 
stepped. Effie,  as  a  spoilt  family  servant,  pre- 
sented an  exasperating  caricature  of  the  family 
attitude  towards  Felix.  In  their  brief  inter- 
course, she  treated  him  with  imperfectly  veiled 


"  Poor  Lady  !  '  71 

distrust,  and  invariably  spoke  of  Adelaide  and 
to  her,  as  to  a  person  nobly  enduring  un- 
reasonable trials.  Though  far  from  vain,  hav- 
ing known  an  atmosphere  where  petting  and 
admiration  were  a  matter  of  course,  Felix  was 
growing  weary  of  being  treated  as  inferior  by 
a  parcel  of  stupid  Noels.  The  retainer's  bur- 
lesque of  the  family's  ill-hidden  opinion  had 
finally  irritated  him  into  a  state  of  resentment. 
Moreover,  he  had  been  only  braced  to  endure 
till  the  moment  when  he  should  have  Adelaide 
to  himself,  quite  beyond  the  reach  of  damag- 
ing influences.  These  coming  weeks  in  Miss 
Anne's  old  house  were  to  give  him  a  blessed 
familiarity  with  his  young  wife,  a  true  inti- 
macy, never  to  be  reached  if  she  were  under 
even  a  shadow  of  Noel  espionage.  With 
something  like  a  scowl  he  whispered,  "Send 
her  home.  There  are  plenty  of  women  at 
Chastellux  to  look  after  your  things." 

Adelaide  smiled  gently.  "Now?  Why, 
they  would  think  we  were  crazy,  after  it's  all 
keen  arranged !" 


72         The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

His  mobile  eyebrows  made  light  of  public 
opinion. 

"Beside,"  she  went  on,  "I  must  have  some 
one  of  my  own.  I  should  be  homesick.  And 
dear  old  Effie  is  just  like  one  of  the  family." 

Felix  thought  this  unpleasantly  true,  but  of- 
fered no  further  objection. 

On  reaching  Chastellux,  Effie  grew  all-per- 
vading. Immediately  ensconced  in  Adelaide's 
dressing-room,  she  bustled  to  and  fro,  unpack- 
ing bags,  arranging  toilette  implements.  Felix 
hovered  about  for  a  minute,  then  stalked  away, 
angry  and  indignant.  Before  long  he  knocked 
at  the  door.  Adelaide  sat  before  a  long  glass, 
covered  to  the  chin  by  a  voluminous  dressing- 
gown  of  softest  grey,  while  Effie  twisted  her 
abundant  hair  in  orderly  coils. 

Before  her  mistress  could  speak,  the  woman 
bustled  forward,  opening  the  door  a  crack. 
"Miss  Adelaide  will  be  down  presently,  sir." 

By  way  of  answer,  Felix  pushed  past  her, 
seated  himself  in  a  high-backed  chair  covered 
with  old,  flowered  chintz,  and  in  grim  silence 


"  Poor  Lady! "  73 

watched  her  place  the  last  hairpin.  "Now  you 
can  go,"  he  announced.  "Mrs.  Gwynne  does 
not  need  you  further." 

"Oh,  that  she  does!"  Effie  disputed. 
"There's  a  world  of  hooks  on  her  dinner 
gown." 

Blushing  as  deeply  as  ever  Angela  could, 
Adelaide  hesitated  at  taking  either  side.  She 
deplored  Effie's  intrusion,  yet  those  hooks 
were  a  prosaic  reality.  Then  also,  she  felt  in- 
finitely shy  at  being  left  so  alone  with  Felix. 
All  at  once  he  seemed  quite  different — no 
longer  docile,  but  overpowering.  For  his  fu- 
ture good  she  struggled  against  a  cowardly 
desire  to  do  his  bidding,  to  yield  herself  with- 
out reserve — but  then — Effie  had  feelings,  too ! 
It  would  not  be  just  for  her  to  show  unkind- 
ness. 

Before  she  could  decide,  Felix  had  spoken. 
"Understand,  old  woman !  I  am  master. 
When  I  say  'go'  .  .  ."  He  glanced  towards 
the  door.  His  voice  admitted  of  no  question. 

With  a  look  of  outraged  dignity  Effie  made 


74         The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

her  way  from  the  room,  first  to  enlighten  old 
Miss  Anne's  pampered  household,  then  to 
write  Mrs.  Noel  a  full  account  of  all  that  had 
passed.  But  in  Effie's  version  the  master 
darkly  figured  as  depriving  his  poor  young 
wife  of  the  most  ordinary  attentions  due  a 
gentlewoman. 

Once  alone  with  her  husband,  Adelaide  ral- 
lied every  faculty.  It  must  begin  now,  the  sit- 
uation brooked  no  delay.  He  must  be  made  to 
see  that  it  was  impossible  to  show  temper, 
actual  temper,  to  a  servant.  She  turned  to 
him,  meaning  to  remonstrate.  Even  Ade- 
laide's conscience,  however,  could  not  at  that 
moment  bring  her  to  scold  Felix!  the  gentle- 
ness, the  humility,  his  radiance  of  delight  at 
her  presence — deeper  resentment  than  hers 
might  well  have  vanished  before  the  smile  he 
gave  her. 

"Horrid  old  thing."  He  had  come  over  to 
Adelaide's  side.  "Let  us  forget  her!" 

With  surprise,  she  found  her  hands  were 
trembling.  "She  was  right  about  the  hooks, 


"  Poor  Lady  !  "  75 

there  are  twenty-seven!"  This  was  very 
feeble,  not  in  the  least  what  such  an  occasion 
demanded,  and  Adelaide  knew  it,  but  she  was 
young,  and  loved  her  husband ! 

Between  them,  the  matter  of  hooks  was 
settled,  although  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Gwynne  did 
not  appear  at  dinner  till  one  hour  after  the 
stated  time,  thereby  causing  Felix  to  be  put 
down  in  the  blackest  books,  below  stairs.  His 
delay,  coupled  with  Effie's  report,  also  led  the 
kitchen  to  infer  that  the  interval  had  been 
filled  with  downright  cruelty  towards  the  un- 
fortunate and  beautiful  young  lady ! 


CHAPTER  VI 
DaptD,  Degetable  Xoves 

"T  T  really  has  set  in  for  a  storm !"  Adelaide 
A  was  looking  down  the  sloping  lawn  with 
its  undulations  softened  by  a  thick  cover  of 
snow.  Beyond  lay  the  dun-coloured  river, 
swollen  and  fringed  with  jagged  ice. 

Felix  heaped  on  fresh  logs,  till  old  Miss 
Anne's  formal  library  glowed  in  the  flicker  of 
hot,  red  flames.  "You  know,"  he  answered, 
"this  is  a  good  room.  Don't  you  like  the  faint 
smell  of  morocco  that  comes  from  old  books? 
Miss  Anne  had  an  amazing  collection,  for  a 
prim  spinster!" 

"I  never  heard  of  her  reading  much."  Ade- 
laide was  still  watching  heavy  snowflakes  light 
and  settle  on  the  dark  branches  of  a  Norway 
fir. 

"Then  some  Gwynne  before  her  must  have 
76 


"  The  Vapid,  Vegetable  Loves  "    77 

had  a  pretty  taste  in  literature !"  Standing  on 
a  high  mahogany  chair,  Felix  burrowed  on  an 
upper  shelf,  struck  a  wax  match  the  better  to 
read  titles,  incidentally  lit  a  cigarette.  He 
lingered  over  several  small,  brown  volumes, 
but  replaced  them  with  a  shake  of  the  head ; 
pulled  out  another  and  began  to  dip  into  its 
mellow  pages. 

"How  the  snow  bends  those  boughs!" 
Adelaide  was  revolving  the  best  opening  for 
an  unwelcome  topic. 

"Nothing  really  nicer  than  a  bad  day!" 
Deep  in  his  book,  Felix  answered  a  trifle  at 
random. 

"I  thought  you  always  liked  it  bright." 
Adelaide  felt  his  inconsistency  in  praising 
those  leaden  skies  after  for  a  whole  fortnight 
swearing  ardent  devotion  to  sunlight. 

Strolling  to  the  window  he  put  his  arm 
about  her  waist,  dimly  conscious  of  a  reserve, 
an  opposition  in  her  which  he  had  already  felt 
vaguely  dawning.  Always  before  a  touch,  a 
caress  had  sufficed  to  stifle  the  voice  of  Ade- 


78         The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

laide's  conscience,  but  to-day  rigorous  weather 
was  having  its  effect  on  a  moral  fibre  sadly 
loosened  by  the  relaxing  influence  of  Felix  and 
sunshine. 

"You  know,  Felix,"  this  time  she  did  not 
yield  to  his  encircling  arm,  secretly  stiffening 
against  its  demoralising  power,  "Papa  never 
touches  tobacco  in  the  morning." 

"Doesn't  he?"  Felix  met  this  as  an  abstrac- 
tion, without  possible  bearing  on  himself. 

"No,  he  says  that  any  reasonable  person 
should  be  able  to  wait  till  after  dinner!" 

"Why  should  they?"  Felix  seemed  much 
unimpressed. 

"Do  you  think  we  ought  to  do  everything 
just  when  we  feel  like  it,  without  any  kind  of 
rule  in  life?  No,  don't,  dear,  please.  I  really 
want  to  talk  about  things."  She  drew  away 
from  him. 

"Contraband  before  dinner,  too?"  he  asked 
mischievously.  "Or  is  it  only  his  own  wife  a 
man  may  not  kiss  of  a  morning?  Really, 
Adelaide,  there  is  not  another  woman  within 


"  The  Vapid,  Vegetable  Loves  "    79 

miles  but  you  that  I've  the  slightest  inclina- 
tion towards.  Come  to  think  of  it,  I've  never 
caught  your  father  breaking  that  rule  either. 
But  then,  I've  never  seen  him  at  any  time  take 
the  smallest  liberty  with  your  mother!" 

"I  wish  you  could  sometimes  be  serious !" 
To  their  daughter,  the  idea  of  Colonel  and 
Mrs.  Noel  exchanging  public  endearments 
seemed  almost  ribald. 

"Serious !  Why,  of  course  I  am,  often,  but 
not  when  you  are.  It  would  never  do  for  both 
of  us  at  once."  Dropping  his  flippant  tone,  he 
went  on  more  soberly,  "Out  with  it,  dear,  I 
have  an  awful  sense  of  being  scolded.  What 
for?  For  being  happy  and  content,  you  ruth- 
less puritan? 

"Is  happiness  everything?"  Adelaide  asked 
with  a  touch  of  wistfulness. 

"If  you  have  decent  luck,  it  is!"  Again  he 
put  his  arm  about  her.  Truly,  she  felt  it  hard. 
Felix's  way  of  life  apparently  held  out  endless 
delights.  Even  in  this  country  quiet  no  day 
with  him  was  like  another.  Passion  he  of- 


80         The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

fered  her,  and  an  adorable  comradeship,  but 
nothing  in  him  met  her  appeals  to  a  sense  of 
responsibility.  So  far  she  had  humoured  him, 
but  the  time  had  come  when  she  must  cease  to 
float  along  the  tide  of  his  irrepressible  joyous- 
ness.  Failing  to  establish  her  principle,  she 
fell  back  on  a  concrete  demonstration  of  the 
claims  of  duty.  "Since  we  can't  go  out,  it's 
just  the  day  for  me  to  write  some  of  those 
notes.  Seventy-three  presents  haven't  been 
acknowledged  yet." 

"To-day?"  Felix  expressed  as  much  sur- 
prise as  if  they  had  long  pledged  the  time  to 
some  pressing  occupation.  "You  must  never 
do  horrid  things  in  horrid  weather!" 

She  looked  up  at  him  in  despair.  What 
could  any  reasonable  person  say  to  such  a 
creature  of  moods.  "I  thought  you  liked 
storms  ..." 

"Do  you  know,  Adelaide,"  his  eyes  danced 
with  loving  malice,  "if  you  were  ugly,  I  should 
now  be  hammering  you  with  the  tongs!" 

What  Felix  actually  did  was  so  very  far 


"  The  Vapid,  Vegetable  Loves  "    8  i 

from  hostile  that  Adelaide  helplessly  suc- 
cumbed, and  against  conviction,  eventually 
settled  down  in  a  big  armchair  by  the  fire,  lis- 
tening while  he  read  from  a  small,  dark  volume 
carefully  chosen  among  old  Miss  Anne's  mo- 
rocco-bound classics. 

"What  is  it?"  she  asked. 

"The  best  in  the  world.  It  will  make  you 
forget  your  notes  and  your  duties  and  your 
conscience.  I  hope  this  snow  will  last  a  week. 
Then  we'll  read  all  day  long,  every  day.  And 
you'll  never  be  cross  again,  will  you?  You 
frighten  me  half  to  death  when  you  scold." 

"You  can  always — hammer  me."  She  fell 
in  helplessly  with  his  mood. 

"No,  I  can't,  because  .  .  ." 

"Go  on  reading,  please,"  Adelaide  inter- 
rupted. It  seemed  almost  wicked  to  let  him 
utter  further  extravagances. 

Felix  began,  his  eyes  dark  and  starry  with 
coming  emotion. 

Adelaide's  smooth  forehead  showed  an  un- 
accustomed wrinkle. 


82         The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

Unconscious,  he  read  on,  "  Tarmi  les  douze 
filles  qui  etaient  enchainees.  .  .  .' '  Adelaide 
always  felt  distrust  of  works  in  the  French 
tongue,  but  the  following  pages  seemed  fully 
reassuring,  and  she  let  herself  yield  to  the 
charm  of  her  husband's  silver-toned  voice. 
For  nearly  an  hour  she  lay  back  in  her  chair, 
interested  and  appeased.  After  all,  French 
was  improving!  A  morning  so  spent  could 
not  be  reckoned  altogether  squandered.  This 
sop  she  threw  her  conscience. 

"  'J'etais  dans  une  espece  de  transport  qui 
m'ota  pour  quelque  temps  la  liberte  de  la  voix, 
et  qui  ne  s'exprima  que  par  mes  yeux.  Made- 
moiselle Manon  Lescaut  .  .  .' ' 

"Felix!"  Adelaide  started  from  her  chair. 
"What  book  is  that?" 

"My  favourite  of  every  love  story  in  the 
world.  How  that  self-conscious  age  ever 
turned  out  such  an  unbroken  cry  of  passion! 
And  this  copy  of  Miss  Anne's  is  a  treasure, 
first  edition  .  .  ." 

Adelaide  was  not  to  be  diverted.    "And  you 


"  The  Vapid,  Vegetable  Loves  "    83 

are  deliberately  reading  aloud  Manon  Lescaut 
to  your  wife?" 

It  vaguely  flitted  through  Felix's  brain  that, 
as  a  grown  man's  daily  companion,  the  single- 
minded  young  girl  might  develop  limitations. 
And  then  Adelaide,  with  all  her  loveliness,  was 
neither  simple  nor  unsophisticated-looking, 
but  rather  had  the  air  and  poise  of  a  well-as- 
sured woman,  knowing  the  world  and  meeting 
it  with  nobility  and  strength.  For  her  to  balk 
at  Manon  Lescaut!  Stifling  an  impulse  of  ir- 
ritation, he  only  remonstrated,  "But  why  not? 
Did  you  ever  read  it?" 

"Certainly  not!  I  never  touched  a  story  of 
that  kind  in  my  life !" 

"Then  how  do  you  know  you  wouldn't  like 
it?"  Felix  objected.  "There  is  nothing  in  the 
least  out  of  the  way  in  it." 

"Felix!  A  book  which  has  been  a  byword 
for  generations !  I  never  heard  any  one  speak 
of  having  read  it !" 

Felix  suppressed  an  inclination  to  point  out 
that  in  Adelaide's  circle  this  also  applied  to 


84         The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

quite  a  number  of  works  whose  respectability 
had  never  been  impugned.  "It  seems,"  he 
spoke  slowly,  "as  if  you  had  rather  made  up 
your  mind  to  jump  on  me,  to-day.  It's — well ! 
it  is  not  complimentary  to  have  you  accusing 
me  of  playing  a  low  trick  on  you." 

At  this  minute  Adelaide  had  no  cause  to 
complain  of  his  lacking  seriousness. 

"As  for  the  book,"  he  went  on,  tossing  it 
down  on  the  table  at  his  elbow,  "perhaps  you 
wrill  take  my  word,  in  spite  of  all  the  censors 
who  never  have  opened  it,  there  is  not  a  syl- 
lable in  it  to  offend  the  ears  of  any  one  old 
enough  to  have  heard  a  rumour  that  men  and 
women  are  occasionally  known  to  entertain, 
mutually,  a  sentiment  slightly  differing  from — 
family  affection."  His  clear  utterance  cut  the 
comfortable  atmosphere  of  Miss  Anne's  quiet 
room.  His  mobile  brows  straightened  over 
blue  eyes  dark  and  sinister  with  anger.  Ade- 
laide felt  the  inability  of  conscious  right  to 
hold  its  own  against  the  slippery  tongue  of  a 
trained  master  of  words. 


"  The  Vapid,  Vegetable  Loves  "     85 

"A  knowledge,"  he  went  on  with  will  to 
hurt,  "which  some  women  have  arrived  at  for 
themselves,  and  that  even  your  code  sanctions 
in  couples  who  have  passed  through  a  parson's 
hands." 

"Oh,  Felix!"  She  was  blushing  deeply. 
Marriage  had  not  been  easy  to  Adelaide,  and 
for  him  to  taunt  her  with  it ! 

Suddenly  he  grew  sorry,  and  with  one  of 
those  bewildering  changes  of  mood  he  came 
close,  and  sitting  on  the  arm  of  her  chair,  drew 
her  to  him.  He  had  reflected.  Of  course,  she 
must  have  limitations.  They  sprang  from  the 
very  qualities  for  which  he  loved  her.  She 
met  this  passively.  Felix  in  revolt  so  grieved 
and  astonished  the  girl  that  she  felt  humbly 
glad  to  have  him  again  near  her.  From  the 
pain  he  inflicted,  he  seemed  her  only  refuge. 
Her  cheek  rested  against  the  prickly  serge  of 
his  sleeve.  Gently  he  stroked  her  smooth  hair. 

"I  suppose,"  he  murmured,  half  jesting,  half 
resigned,  "you  must  be  something  of  a  prude, 
dear,  but  do  be  a  nice  one.  A  prurient  prude 


86         The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

is  so  embarrassing,  the  kind  who  is  on  the 
lookout,  where  there  is  really  nothing.  Hon- 
estly, heaps  of  the  books  I  read  wouldn't  suit 
you  at  all.  I  should  never  dream  of  wanting 
you  to  look  at  them.  They  would  only 
shock  .  .  ." 

"Then  why  should  any  one  read  them?" 
Adelaide  persisted.  "Why  should  you?" 

"I !  because,  for  one  thing,  they  won't  tell 
me  anything  a  man  doesn't  know  already." 
His  sudden  return  to  brutality  determined  her 
to  have  it  out  once  for  all. 

"And  Manon  Lescaut,  Felix !  You  say  it  is 
all  right,  but  were  those  two — married?" 

"Were  Adam  and  Eve?"  Leaving  the  arm 
of  her  chair,  Felix  proceeded  to  walk  rapidly 
to  and  fro,  glancing  curiously  at  her,  now  as 
if  measuring  the  abyss  between  them,  now  al- 
most with  hostility  speculating  upon  this 
alien  presence,  sitting  there,  domiciled  at  his 
hearth. 

"Are  you  pretending,"  he  finally  broke  out, 
"seriously  to  believe  that  two  human  creatures' 


"  The  Vapid,  Vegetable  Loves  "    87 

history  can't  be  discussed  or  written  about,  un- 
less a  man  in  a  white  vestment  or  a  black  coat 
has  mumbled  a  few  words  over  them  ?  why — 
his  mind  swept  far  afield — "you  are  ruling 
out  such  a  lot  of  interesting  characters.  Even 
the  Bible  is  less  exclusive." 

Again  Adelaide  felt  herself  no  match  for 
him,  but  remained  nevertheless  uncon- 
vinced by  his  casuistry.  Right  must  always  be 
right.  That  there  was  no  gainsaying! 

"Besides,"  he  went  on  with  growing  excite- 
ment, "the  quiet  joys  of  honest  married 
couples,  their  Vapid,  vegetable  loves' — these 
are  not  exactly  fruitful  themes  for  litera- 
ture!" 

"Is  literature  so  all-important?"  Adelaide 
put  this  with  the  air  of  at  last  reaching  solid 
ground. 

"God  knows !"  Felix  threw  up  his  argument. 
"Some  people  have  thought  so."  In  turn  he 
felt  the  hopelessness  of  dispute.  Adelaide  sin- 
cerely believed  in  her  own  point  of  view.  He 
recognised  that.  And  he  had  tormented  her, 


88         The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

shown  brutality  when  she  was  likewise  suffer- 
ing in  her  conscience.  All  at  once  this  made 
him  very  tender,  very  remorseful.  Thrusting 
his  hands  deep  in  his  pockets  he  eagerly  sur- 
veyed her,  hunting  an  issue  on  which  they 
might  come  together.  His  fingers  touched  a 
smooth  surface,  a  letter!  Drawing  it  out,  he 
showed  a  comic  look  of  guilt.  "It's  for  you," 
he  gasped,  all  penitence.  "I  must  have  for- 
gotten it!  Are  you  ever  going  to  forgive 
me?" 

Adelaide  read  the  address.  "From  mam- 
ma," she  presently  announced.  "Oh,  Felix! 
How  could  you?  It  must  have  been  there  for 
days."  Opening,  she  read  with  increasing 
concern. 

"Come !"  Felix  adroitly  used  the  lesser  of- 
fence to  dim  the  greater.  "Not  so  long  as 
that,  only  a  day  or  two.  Say  you  forgive 
me!" 

Adelaide  felt  contemptibly  glad  of  his  capit- 
ulating, she  found  extreme  discomfort  in 
being  at  odds  with  Felix,  and  the  quick  evap- 


"  The  Vapid,  Vegetable  Loves"    89 

oration  of  his  wrath  left  her  in  the  position  of 
meanly  nursing  hers. 

"The  fifteenth  is  mamma's  birthday!"  Her 
tone  was  friendly. 

"Then  we  must  send  her  things,  flowers  and 
— what  does  she  like?"  Felix  vainly  tried  to 
project  his  imagination  into  the  probable 
fancies  of  a  mother-in-la\v. 

"She  wants  us  to  come  for  a  long  visit !" 

Felix  looked  depressed. 

"You  see,"  Adelaide  went  on,  "mamma 
can't  come  to  and  fro  in  this  weather,  and  the 
winter  is  lasting  so  long." 

"Have  her  here  to  stay!"  Felix  suggested 
with  inward  reluctance. 

"Not  the  same,  she  would  be  disappointed." 
Adelaide's  manner  came  rather  near  wheed- 
ling. She  went  on  encouragingly,  "You  see, 
their  street  is  being  torn  up,  so  she  and  papa 
are  moving  out  of  town  on  the  eighth.  The 
fourteenth  is  when  they  want  us.  They  will 
be  quite  settled  then.  There  is  a  quiet  room 
for  you  to- write  in,  and  plenty  of  nice  people 


90         The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

live  in  our  neighbourhood.  Quite  literary 
people,  too!  So  you  won't  be  worn  out  by 
your  family-in-law." 

Felix  pleaded,  begged  off,  made  spasmodic 
resistance  to  Adelaide's  well-meant  pressure. 
In  the  end  he  yielded.  After  all  a  married 
man  has  concessions  to  make,  and  any  adult 
should  be  able  to  endure  for  one  short  month 
the  company  of  two  estimable  beings  to  whom 
he  stands  indebted  for  the  possession  of  a 
wife' 


CHAPTER  VII 
jfoj  an£>  Crane 

ON  Felix's  second  day  under  their  roof, 
Colonel  and  Mrs.  Noel  had  the  shock  of 
a  son-in-law  with  unshorn  chin  at  breakfast. 
Too  polite  for  open  criticism  of  one  who  after 
all  was  their  guest,  they  nevertheless  felt 
greatly  perturbed  at  this  flagrant  breach  of 
deportment.  Then  again,  how  did  he  manage 
to  look  so  spent  and  extenuated?  The  air 
about  their  country  house  was  of  unimpeach- 
able purity,  they  often  commented  upon  it. 
Did  he  perchance  possess  some  baleful  capacity 
for  hidden  dissipation,  for  perpetrating  mys- 
terious solitary  orgies,  here  in  their  very 
midst  ?  He  also  showed  the  tired  eyes  of  a  per- 
son who  has  not  slept.  His  very  hair  lacked 
life,  and  the  lengthy,  substantial  breakfast  re- 
91 


92         The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

duced  him  to  miserable  silence.  It  was 
slightly  reassuring  that  Adelaide  had  never 
looked  better ! 

"This  came  from  our  own  bees,"  Mrs.  Noel 
urged.  "Try  it  on  your  waffles,  or  would  you 
rather  have  cinnamon  and  sugar?" 

Poor  Felix  submitted  to  an  exuding  lump 
of  honeycomb,  to  sausage,  to  family  prayers. 
Adelaide  had  secured  from  him  a  promise  to 
be  "good,"  and  good  he  was,  though  weighed 
down  by  a  depressing  doubt  if  his  reason  could 
weather  many  more  after-dinner  seances  with 
Colonel  Noel.  Smoking  at  large  was  not  fa- 
voured at  Noel  Place,  consequently  the  two 
men  nightly  faced  each  other  over  their  de- 
canters, for  a  mortal  hour.  The  nervous  strain 
of  this  reduced  Felix  to  utter  sleeplessness. 
Under  kindly  skies  he  talked  readily  enough, 
but  the  constant  sense  of  disapproval,  of  being 
set  down  as  strange  and  unaccountable, 
blocked  off  every  approach  to  his  new  relative. 
There  must  be  so  many  such  evenings  in  a 
month  that  even  the  prospect  of  neighbours  to 


Fox  and  Crane  93 

dine  came  as  a  grateful  reprieve  from  Colonel 
Noel's  prosy  after-dinner  anecdotes. 

"You  will  see  really  interesting  people,  to- 
night," Adelaide  informed  him,  as  they 
lingered  together  in  a  sunny  morning  room. 
"Miss  Juliette  Wilcox,  who  wrote  those 
poems.  The  book  I  put  on  your  table ;  did  you 
read  it?" 

"I  will !"  Felix  rashly  promised. 

But  Adelaide  had  more  to  come  .  .  . 

"And  Mrs.  Thurmann,  we  have  a  copy  of 
her  Queenly  Quakers  in  the  house,  too." 

"That's  the  deuce  of  a  name!"  With  his 
wife,  Felix's  tongue  comfortably  loosened. 
He  was  enjoying  the  freshness  of  her  beauty. 
It  came  home  to  him  with  new  force  that  she 
was  his,  this  gentle,  spotless  creature. 

"Ah,  Felix!  listen!"  She  detected  his  inat- 
tentive, admiring  eye.  "They  will  expect  you 
not  to  forget  what  they  have  done.  Mr.  Thur- 
mann has  travelled.  He  lectures — free,  you 
know — at  institutes  and  places — on  the  Mid- 
night Sun,  and  the  Pyramids.  Felix!  Some 


94         The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

one  is  coming!"  Laughing  and  blushing,  she 
strove  to  disengage  herself. 

"I  remember  better,  so!"  Felix's  cheek 
rested  against  hers. 

"You  are  very" — Adelaide  hardly  liked  to 
say — prickly;  stubble  being  one  of  those  un- 
mentionable male  attributes! 

"It's  all  your  people's  fault!"  Felix  under- 
stood. "If  they  treat  me  like  Bluebeard,  I've 
got  to  dress  the  part.  When  you  were  re- 
stored to  their  arms,  didn't  they  behave  as  if 
they  had  never  expected  to  see  you  alive 
again?  Didn't  they  evidently  think  I  was 
going  to  destroy  you?  At  all  events,  this 
beard  is  to  be  the  length  of  a  Mormon  Elder's, 
ending  in  curls  .  .  ."  He  let  her  go,  almost 
roughly. 

Now  it  was  Adelaide  who  came  to  him, 
pleading,  slipping  a  hand  through  his  arm. 
She  leaned  against  him,  coaxing.  "Dear,  do 
be  just."  A  volunteered  caress  from  her  still 
had  power  to  make  Felix's  quick  colour  rise 
and  ebb.  "They  do  not  quite  understand  you, 


Fox  and  Crane  95 

it's  true,  but  then  you  really  are  a  little  odd. 
Now,  yesterday,  you  wouldn't  drive  in  the 
morning,  had  to  shut  yourself  up  and  work. 
And  then  we  meet  you  walking  miles  away  in 
the  country!  Of  course  it  seemed  strange  to 
mamma.  I  could  hardly  explain  it,  could 
I?" 

"I  meant  to  write,  had  my  head  full  of  stuff, 
but  not  sleeping  or — something  played  me  out. 
The  paper  looked  empty,  my  brain  did  not 
work."  The  idea  of  accounting  for  every 
trivial  action  left  Felix  only  dazed. 

Adelaide  sighed  a  little,  fearing  it  would  be 
no  easy  matter  to  reconcile  her  family  to  these 
irregular  visits  of  the  Muse.  "But  you  will 
drive  with  mamma  and  me  this  afternoon?" 
She  explained  the  sacred  duty  of  visits. 

Felix  bargained:  if  Adelaide  would  ride 
with  him,  a  whole  long  morning,  not  only 
would  he  sit  in  Mrs.  Noel's  victoria,  do  her 
bidding  from  three  till  five,  but  his  unpresenta- 
ble chin  should  be  meanwhile  submitted  to  the 
village  barber.  This  was  not  accomplished 


96         The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

without  much  argument  of  a  kind  which  left 
Adelaide  slightly  ruffled  as  to  hair  and  necktie, 
with  quickened  pulse,  and  unworthy  longings 
forever  to  abandon  the  reclaiming  of  that  en- 
chanting, incorrigible  being,  her  husband. 

Felix  kept  his  promise  like  any  saint,  per- 
mitting himself  to  be  led  into  several  neigh- 
bouring parlours,  and  talking  tamely  over  tea- 
cups, without  betraying  one  gleam  of  im- 
patience. Entirely  distrusting  him,  Mrs.  Noel 
was  quite  alive  to  the  distinction  of  having  a 
real  lion  for  a  son-in-law,  and  fully  intended 
to  savour  the  glory  of  exhibiting  him,  well 
leashed,  to  admiring  friends. 

At  last  it  was  over !  "Plenty  of  time  to  rest 
and  dress  before  dinner,"  she  notified  her  vic- 
tim as  they  finally  drew  up  under  the  porte- 
cochere  at  Noel  Place.  "We  keep  early  hours 
here,  seven  o'clock." 

Felix  was  blue  with  cold  and  despair.  The 
tea  tables,  the  victoria,  the  sense  of  his  mother- 
in-law's  hostile  ownership  had  exhausted  body 
and  spirit.  In  answer  to  his  pleading  whisper, 


Fox  and  Crane  97 

Adelaide  shook  her  head.  "There  will  be  a 
good  fire  for  us,  and  if  you  ask  for  whiskey, 
so,  between  meals,  mamma  will  think  .  .  ." 
She  would  also  have  liked  to  stop  his  smoking 
cigarettes  in  her  dressing-room,  not  that  she 
minded  it,  indeed  Adelaide  was  so  far  demor- 
alised that  their  odour  and  faint  blue  smoke 
had  grown  positively  pleasant,  an  association 
overcoming  her  lifelong  training. 

"A  letter  from  Cousin  Emily!"  she  ex- 
claimed. "How  nice!"  But  she  did  not  re- 
peat this  comment,  after  reading  Mrs.  Lau- 
rence's close-written  epistle. 

Beginning  with  a  few  stock  remarks  on  the 
beauty  of  Florida,  the  old  lady  proceeded  to 
advise  .  .  .  "Now,  of  course,  you  are  noth- 
ing but  a  green  girl.  You  don't  look  so,  but 
that  is  an  accident.  And  Felix  is  of  the  big 
world.  Naturally  you  must  be  on  constant 
guard  not  to  bore  him,  or  let  your  people  drive 
him  half  mad.  Then  you  are  an  honest  soul, 
steadfast,  with  perfectly  simple  impulses  and 
no  imagination.  He  is  a  poet!  Don't  forget 


98         The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

that!  A  creature  all  flame  and  shadow.  If 
I'm  not  much  mistaken,  Master  Felix  is  capa- 
ble of  startling  ups  and  downs.  Perhaps  you 
have  an  inkling  of  that  already.  Here  is  my 
point.  Don't  worry  if  he  turns  restive.  Your 
dear  papa's  after-dinner  monologues  are  most 
unlike  anything  your  husband  has  previously 
experienced.  Don't  worry,  but  sent  him  off  to 
town  alone  for  a  couple  of  days.  Find  which 
of  your  engagements  is  most  intolerable  to 
him;  make  his  excuses  (a  poet's  wife  must 
learn  to  be  good  at  that)  and  pack  him  off,  with 
a  latchkey.  Mark  my  words!  He  will  dine 
with  Albert  Yule,  talk  shop  for  one  evening, 
and  you  will  have  him  trotting  home  before  his 
time,  eager  for  a  sight  of  you.  All  men  are 
more  or  less  so,  even  the  dull  ones.  Frantic  to 
marry,  can't  wait!  Then  one  day,  they  wake 
up  to  feel  saddled  and  bridled  and  bitted  and 
curbed,  and  the  dear  knows  what,  beside. 
It's  a  phase  they  pass  through,  and  a  wise 
woman  makes  them  take  their  heads.  Now 
with  him,  as  you  value  your  future,  give  him 


Fox  and  Crane  99 

plenty  of  line.  People  who  marry  poets  have 
blisses  other  people  never  even  guess  at,  for 
which  they  must  expect  honourably  to 
pay  .  .  ." 

Felix  had  been  watching  his  wife.  "Now 
what  can  Mrs.  Bradish  Laurence  find  to  write 
about" — he  reached  a  hand  towards  the  letter 
— "that  makes  you  turn  pink,  and  look  as  if 
you'd  been  caught  with  your  fingers  in  the 
jam?" 

"No,  it's  not  to  be  seen."  She  held  it  away 
from  him,  with  the  mental  reflection  that  Mrs, 
Laurence,  being  also  a  little  odd,  quite  failed 
to  count  the  steadying  value  of  habit. 

"Very  well!"  Felix  took  her  refusal  in 
good  part,  "but  I  won't  show  you  my  letter 
either.  It's  from  Angela." 

Adelaide  looked  expectant. 

Felix  had  grown  serious.  "She  is  deliber- 
ately moping  herself  to  bits,  for  that  long- 
legged  lieutenant  of  hers." 

"Too  bad  he's  impossible."  Adelaide  was 
truly  sorry:  "And  he  is  nice  enough,  himself, 


ioo       The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

but  his  people  are  out  of  the  question.  If  they 
only  lived  away,  somewhere;  but  their  being 
here — I  really  don't  see  that  Angela  could  be 
allowed  to  marry  him  .  .  ." 

Felix  raised  mobile  eyebrows.  "Then  her 
fond  mother  had  better  order  the  flowers  for 
little  Angela's  funeral.  Once  in  a  while  you 
see  a  girl  like  that,  not  often — not  a  stable- 
seeming  creature,  but  born  to  love  one  person. 
She'll  never  change.  It's  that  or  shipwreck. 
It  is  slow  murder  to  keep  her  from  him — and 
because  of  his  people!"  Felix's  temper  was 
rising.  "Of  all  the  damned,  idiotic  .  .  ." 

"But  don't  you  think,"  Adelaide  felt  uneasy, 
"that  every  girl  should  have  some  control  over 
her  feelings?" 

Felix  had  flown  aloft  into  space ;  all  at  once 
he  alighted  in  quite  a  different  place,  an  habit- 
ual action  which  never  failed  to  disconcert 
Adelaide,  to  whom  it  constantly  appeared  a 
way  of  dodging  important  issues.  "It  is  great 
fun  to  be  a  married  householder,"  he  stated,  to 
her  complete  bewilderment.  "There  are  lots 


Fox  and  Crane  101 

of  things  we  can  do,  you  and  I,  that  we  could 
never  manage  apart!" 

This  was  certainly  reassuring,  and  Ade- 
laide's approval  of  her  own  methods  received 
new  encouragement,  from  the  chastened  and 
conventional  mood  in  which  her  husband  sat 
down  to  dinner. 

His  resolve  to  be  "good"  held  through  oys- 
ters, soup,  and  fish,  but  at  filet  there  was  a 
gradual  faltering,  under  a  concerted  attempt 
of  the  guests  to  suit  their  conversation  to  his 
taste.  Mrs.  Thurmann  led  off  (as  an  expert 
on  royal  characteristics)  with  the  Crucifying 
of  a  Queen,  a  work,  according  to  her,  rich  in 
historic  interest.  Did  Mr.  Gwynne  think  the 
internal  evidence  pointed  to  its  emanating 
from  a  lady  about  the  court,  or  a  faithless  and 
trusted  diplomatist?  Felix's  assertion  that  it 
was  the  work  of  a  New  York  journalist,  she 
simply  waved  aside,  ruthlessly  pursuing  her 
inquiry,  till  Miss  Wilcox,  with  a  superior  smile, 
rescued  the  conversation. 

As  a  versifier  (with  a  technique  moulded  on 


IO2       The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

Emily  Dickinson)  this  lady  naturally  felt 
more  in  rapport  with  Felix  than  could  be  possi- 
ble to  a  mere  compiler.  Editing  tiresome  old 
diaries  (so  the  poetess  rated  Queenly  Quakers) 
was  scarcely  ground  for  posing  as  an  au- 
thoress. In  a  graceless  attempt  to  escape  Miss 
Wilcox's  analysis  of  the  present  Laureate, 
Felix  became  involved  with  Mr.  Thurmann, 
who  was  eagerly  waiting  to  expound  his 
theory  of  lecturing. 

"In  speaking  to  factory  girls" — there  was 
more  than  a  hint  of  platform  in  his  delivery 
— "the  main  idea  is  to  make  them  think  of 
things  in  a  perfectly  familiar  way.  Now  take 
the  Pyramids!  Of  course,  as  a  student  who 
has  spent  several  weeks  in  Egypt,  I  know  a 
great  deal  about  their  meaning  and  construc- 
tion not  apparent  to  the  ordinary  tourist,  and 
scarcely  comprehensible  to  young  working- 
women.  So  I  make  myself  popular.  It  is  very 
easy.  I  come  out  on  the  platform  and  squeeze 
the  bulb.  It  is  dark,  of  course.  A  Pyramid 
appears  on  the  screen;  very  clear  photograph, 


Fox  and  Crane  103 

with  me  climbing  from  one  block  to  another. 
I  have  on  a  hat.  'Young  ladies,'  I  say  (always 
call  them  ladies!)  'you  see  that  hat?  Well, 
here  it  is!'  I  hold  the  real  hat  against  the 
screen  where  they  can  all  look  at  it,  and  this 
enables  them  immediately  to  feel  perfectly  fa- 
miliar with  the  Pyramids." 

"And  what  good  does  that  do?"  The  pres- 
sure upon  Felix's  safety  valve  plainly  regis- 
tered— danger!  "Could  anything  really  be 
more  unfamiliar?" 

"What  good!"  Mr.  Thurmann  felt  ruffled 
by  this  lack  of  sympathy.  "Why,  keeping 
them  from  miserable,  worthless  theatres  and 
dances."  His  tone  suggested  visions  of  Felix 
hounding  them  on  to  vice. 

"Now  an  elevating  play" — the  rector  here 
tactfully  opened  the  valve — "a  really  elevated 
play,  in  my  opinion,  hurts  no  one."  A  con^ 
sciously  broad-minded  priest,  he  wished  to  inv 
press  this  stranger  with  his  liberal  knowledge 
of  life.  "If  we  could  only  restrict  the  theatre 
to  beautiful  and  improving  pieces!  I  don't 


104       The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

know   when    I    have   enjoyed   anything   more 
than  'Ben  Hur' !" 

Felix  was  fast  developing  a  strong  resem- 
blance to  Orestes  in  his  most  fury-driven  mo- 
ments; the  last  remarks  goaded  him  to  open 
rebellion.  "Since  Oscar  is  dead,  there  are  no 
English  plays  but  Shaw's  and  Pinero's." 

"Oscar,  did  you  say?"  queried  the  rector,  to 
whom  the  curtailment  conveyed  nothing. 

"Yes,"  Felix  was  full  of  regret.  "Poor  Os- 
car Wilde!" 

Every  face  at  once  showed  that  profoundly 
unconscious  expression  always  assumed  when' 
young  children   or  pets   prove  not   quite  ad- 
justed to  the  ways  of  polite  society. 

"I  hardly  think  we  need  discuss  that  unfor- 
tunate person  here !"  fulminated  the  church. 

A  faint  shadow,  not  too  unlike  disappoint- 
ment, flickered  across  the  ladies.  For  a  sec- 
ond they  had  felt  perilously,  outrageously  on 
the  brink  of  long-denied  knowledge. 

"If  he  wrote  passable  plays,  why  on  earth 
shouldn't  he  have  the  credit  of  them,  poor 


Fox  and  Crane  105 

devil?"  Felix  was  driven  to  platitudes. 
"What  a  man  may  have  done  hasn't  anything 
to  do  with  his  work !" 

"Wouldn't  that  be  a  rather  new  and  danger- 
ous doctrine?"  Mrs.  Noel  spoke  with  the  air 
of  proving  a  point  beyond  dispute. 

"Haven't  you  a  copy  of  the  Fornarina  in 
your  parlour?"  Felix  was  taking  the  bit  be- 
tween his  teeth. 

In  the  general  bewilderment  which  followed 
this  perfectly  irrelevant  remark,  Miss  Wilcox 
again  saw  occasion  for  benevolent  interven- 
tion. 

"I'm  going  to  ask  a  favour,  Mr.  Gwynne. 
Will  you  write  your  name  and  mine  in  your 
latest  volume?" 

"Your  name,  but  I  did  not  give  you  the 
book?"  Felix  had  now  reached  that  stage  in 
which  a  badgered  dog,  labelled  mad,  bites  im- 
partially, failing  to  distinguish  rescuers  from 
the  boy  with  the  tin  can. 

When  Adelaide  later  managed  a  minute 
apart  with  him,  in  the  drawing-room,  he  be- 


io6       The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

came  truly  penitent  at  her  picture  of  his  rude- 
ness. He  wrote  his  name,  also  Miss  Wilcox's 
and  a  stanza,  on  the  fly-leaf  of  her  precious 
volume.  He  even  offered  no  organised  resist- 
ance on  being  pinned  down  to  a  luncheon 
party  at  which  the  mollified  poetess  promised 
him  a  few  literary  and  artistic  friends.  Until 
the  carriages  were  announced,  he  vainly  tried 
to  entrap  Adelaide  into  a  little  confidential 
chat.  In  this  strange  world,  she  appeared  his 
only  refuge.  But  when  the  young  pair  finally 
closed  the  door  of  her  dressing-room  behind 
them,  he  prepared  to  let  off  the  suppressed  irri- 
tation of  many  weary  moments. 

"Will  you  undo  my  necklace?"  she  asked, 
with  comfortable  friendliness.  "Thank  you!" 
She  considered  the  handful  of  creamy  pearls. 
"How  well  it  went  off,  after  all,"  she  added. 
"Mamma  really  took  a  lot  of  trouble  to  collect 
the  people  who  are  interested  in  things  you 
like,  books  and  poetry.  I  think" — she  smiled 
happily — "I  think  she  wanted  you  to  see  that 
we  are  not  all  such  utter  philistines !" 


Fox  and  Crane  107 

On  the  morning  of  Miss  Wilcox's  luncheon, 
Adelaide  remembered  Mrs.  Laurence's  letter 
with  a  touch  of  complacency.  Cousin  Emily 
after  all  did  not  understand  everything-.  Here 
was  Felix  going  with  her  quite  willingly, 
showing  real  symptoms  of  settling  down  to  the 
ways  of  ordinary  life.  Leaving  Colonel  and 
Mrs.  Noel  to  follow  in  a  close  coupe,  the 
young  people  started  off  in  a  gay  little  sleigh, 
with  a  sense  of  favouring  wind  and  tide.  The 
sparkle  of  sun  and  snow,  the  purity  of  frosty 
air,  warm  furs  and  jingling  silver  bells  keyed 
Felix's  spirits  to  a  pitch  which  filled  Adelaide 
with  pleased  anticipation.  She  was  not  above 
a  natural  pride  of  ownership ;  and  as  Miss  Wil- 
cox  excelled  in  artful  combinations,  there 
would  be  an  audience,  a  few  girls  of  her  own 
kind,  beside  the  people  for  Felix ! 

Driving  home  three  hours  later,  Adelaide 
had  much  ado  to  keep  down  tears  of  mortifi- 
cation. Even  she  began  to  feel  prickings  of 
doubt.  Could  Mrs.  Laurence  be  right?  But 


io8        The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

how  could  wrong  ever  be  other  than  inexcusa- 
ble— and  surely,  surely,  Felix  was  wrong! 
He  had  carefully  tucked  her  in  at  Miss  Wil- 
cox's  door.  For  a  mile  they  glided  along  in 
silence.  "Do  you  mind?"  He  drew  out  a 
cigarette. 

"Mind !"  Adelaide  spoke  tragically. 
"After  to-day,  I  expect  never  to  mind  any- 
thing again !" 

He  looked  at  her  honestly  puzzled.  "What 
on  earth  are  you  talking  about?" 

"Oh,  Felix!  Every  one  of  them  noticed  it. 
I  could  see !  At  table  you  wouldn't  join  in  the 
general  conversation,  though  each  person 
asked  you  questions  .  .  ." 

"They  did !"    Felix  agreed  to  that. 

"And  you  hadn't  a  word  for  any  one  but 
that  ill-behaved  little  Mrs.  Warde.  You  let 
her  make  eyes,  and  take  possession  of  you,  all 
through  lunch !" 

"I  couldn't  ask  her  to  put  her  head  in  a  bag, 
could  I  ?"  Felix  spoke  roughly. 

"No,  but  there  was  Lily,  on  your  other  side !" 


Fox  and  Crane  109 

"Miss  Northrup  made  me  nervous."  Felix 
really  seemed  to  consider  this  an  excuse.  "She 
said  she  was  afraid  I'd  be  shocked  if  I  knew 
she'd  never  finished  Paradise  Lost!  I  couldn't 
put  her  head  in  a  bag,  either,  or  tell  her  I 
shouldn't  have  supposed  she  even  knew  her 
letters,  and  didn't  care.  Mrs.  Warde  prattled 
along  naturally,  about  plays  and  places  to 
dine;  she  is  rather  amusing.  Why  does  Miss 
Wilcox  have  her,  if  she  isn't  to  be  spoken  to?" 

"Because  she  wanted  Mr.  Warde,  for  you." 

"Well,"  Felix  conceded,  "I  could  spare  him; 
a  dull  sculptor,  poor  at  his  job!  It  all  comes 
of  that  nonsense  of  having  husbands  and 
wives  together!" 

"Yes,  but  Felix!"  Adelaide  was  not  to  be 
diverted.  "For  you  to  go  off  alone  with  her 
after  lunch,  and  never  come  back  to  hear  one 
of  your  own  poems  recited — and  for  us  to  find 
you  and  her — smoking  together  in  Miss  Wil- 
cox's  boudoir !" 

"My  dear  girl !"  Felix  was  plainly  im- 
patient. "This  is  a  good  deal  of  fuss  about 


no       The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

nothing.  When  you  have  seen  more  of  the 
world  than  your  own  particular  parish,  you 
will  know  better  than  to  hunt  trouble.  Smok- 
ing cigarettes  with  a  woman  does  not  neces- 
sarily imply — anything  further!  And  if 
you  will  drag  me  up  and  down  the  country 
side  to  be  gaped  at  by  a  mob  of  pompous  don- 
keys, you  must  expect  me  to  pair  off  with  any 
creature,  man  or  woman,  who  uses  a  human 
tongue,  and  makes  no  pretence  at  .  .  ." 

"She's  pretending  to  have  golden  hair!" 
Adelaide  objected  in  a  manner  which  was  un- 
deniably human. 

"Quite  true!  And  if  I  were  going  to  have 
anything  to  do  with  her  hair,  I'd  want  it  real. 
As  it  is,  little  as  you  seem  to  grasp  the  fact, 
our  intercourse  was  entirely  confined  to  .  .  ." 

Adelaide    made    a    horrified    gesture  .  .  . 

"Well!"  he  went  on.  "You  seem  to  be 
hinting  at  something  more  ...  If  that  is 
all,  what  is  the  trouble  about  ?" 

"Oh,  Felix!"  She  was  blushing  deeply. 
"I  never  supposed,  I  never  really  in> 


Fox  and  Crane  1 1 1 

agined  ...  I  only  saw  that  it  looked  bad, 
to  the  others !" 

"And  you  are  sitting  there,"  never  before 
had  Felix  used  that  voice,  "berating  me,  on 
account  of  a  parcel  of  fossils,  and  bread-and- 
butter  misses,  people  so  dumb,  so  unutterably 
and  abominably  stupid,  that  what  they  think 
matters  exactly  as  much  as  if  they  were  cows 
and  sheep!" 

"Felix !"  Her  voice  sounded  truly  unhappy. 
"Am  I  stupid,  too?" 

Felix  shivered.  "No,"  he  answered,  too 
resolutely,  "not  the  least  bit  in  the  world,  my 
dear;  but  if  you  go  so  much  with  people  who 
are,  now  and  then  you  may  fall  into  the  mis- 
take of  thinking  with  their  heads,  instead  of 
your  own." 

There  was  a  minute's  silence;  presently  he 
broke  out,  warmly,  "Do  let  us  get  away  from 
here,  back  to  our  own  house.  We  can  have 
]5?bple,  if  you  are  lonely :  Yule,  Mrs.  Le  Grand, 
Angela.  They  will  come  to  us,  and  there  is  a 
man  called  Gather.  We  shall  never  be  happy 


1 1 2       The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

here.  I  do  try,  but  always  I'll  come  to  grief 
and  say  something  to  make  you  miserable. 
They  are  all  looking  at  me,  and  expecting  it. 
Dear,  we  must  understand  one  another  a 
little  better,  before  you  let  all  these  outsiders 
loose  on  me.  Promise,  now;  make  some  ex- 
cuse, anything  to  send  us  to  Chastellux. 
Truly,  I  shall  never  write  a  line  here." 

"I  do  declare,  that  poor  child  is  positively 
wonderful,"  Mrs.  Noel  that  night  confided  to 
her  husband.  "She  won't  own  to  being  in  the 
least  unhappy,  though  after  the  way  he  be- 
haved to-day  .  .  ." 

Fresh  from  the  joys  of  reconciliation,  the 
young  wife  had  been  ill  disposed  to  tolerate  a 
word  against  Felix,  though  Mrs.  Noel  im- 
proved the  after-dinner  hour  by  subjecting  her 
daughter  to  an  expert  mixture  of  pumping  and 
condolence. 

"You  don't  quite  understand  him,  mamma." 
Adelaide  luckily  never  wearied  of  a  good  for- 
mula. "The  air  here  gives  him  insomnia,  and 


Fox  and  Crane  i  i  3 

that  prevents  his  working.  We  are  thinking 
of  going  back  to  Chastellux." 

Mrs.  Noel  reflected.  "Perhaps  you  had 
better  be  in  your  own  house,  but  I  hate  to 
think  of  you,  shut  up  in  the  country,  alone 
with  him." 

Adelaide's  white  eyelids  drooped.  A  guilty, 
delicious  tremor  passed  over  her.  Being  shut 
up  alone  with  Felix  did  not  exactly  present  it- 
self in  the  light  of  acute  hardship. 

After  much  cogitation,  however,  she  eventu- 
ally decided  upon  a  compromise.  Her  mother 
urged  the  propriety  of  a  young  couple  regis- 
tering, as  it  were,  in  society,  before  striking 
out  a  line  of  their  own,  if  indeed  they  were  so 
ill  judged  as  to  meditate  such  a  thing.  The 
advice  in  Mrs.  Laurence's  letter  had  also  ended 
by  making  its  mark  to  such  an  extent  that  Ade- 
laide began  to  concede  the  wisdom  of  special 
allowance  for  some  of  her  husband's  peculiari- 
ties. At  this  juncture  a  town  house  was  of- 
fered, furnished  and  ready  for  use.  The  pros- 
pect of  speedy  escape  from  Noel  Place  quite 


1 14       The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

banished  Felix's  horror  of  cities.  Giving  up 
his  wish  to  enjoy  the  spring  at  Chastellux,  he 
prepared  with  equable  temper  to  face  the  dregs 
of  the  season  in  town. 


CHAPTER  VIII 
jfetfi  f snores  tbe  "Rules 

"T7DU  can't  imagine  what  a  gratification  it 

A  is  to  feel  that  no  one  had  ever  proposed 
to  my  wife,  till  I  came  along,"  Felix  mischie- 
vously announced  to  Mrs.  Bradish  Laurence, 
who  was  lunching  with  the  young  couple  in 
their  new  town  house. 

"Don't  be  too  sure  of  that,"  the  old  lady 
sapiently  nodded.  "Very  foolish  of  you  to  tell 
him  so,  Adelaide.  Think  of  his  conceit !" 

"Dear  Cousin  Emily,  this  is  the  first  word 
we've  ever  had  on  the  subject."  Adelaide 
would  as  soon  have  thought  of  publishing  the 
price  of  her  underwear  as  of  hinting  at  a  very 
creditable  string  of  discarded  admirers. 

"Some  things  are  plain  enough  without  tell- 
ing."    Felix  aimed  at  a  definite  point.     "We 
"5 


n6       The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

have  never  rawly  put  it  into  words,  but  you, 
my  dear,  could  never  have  been  so  rude  and 
inconsiderate  as  to  hurt  any  gentleman's  feel- 
ings by  saying  'no.'  I  judge  from  your  gen- 
eral reluctance  to  refuse  anything,  even  a 
woman's  lunch." 

"But  I  don't  want  to.  Women's  lunches  are 
pleasant."  Adelaide's  belief  that  all  decorous 
entertainments  must  entertain  savoured  of  a 
past  generation.  "Besides  there  are  other  rea- 
sons for  going.  Don't  you  think  I'm  right, 
cousin  ?" 

"Are  you  asking  me  to  put  my  finger  be- 
tween the  tree  and  the  bark?  No,  thank  you, 
dear,"  the  old  lady  retorted,  in  high  enjoy- 
ment. 

"But  see,"  Adelaide  would  not  be  put  off, 
"there  are  people  who  can't  give  us  din- 
ners .  .  ." 

"Thank  God  for  them,"  groaned  Felix,  "but 
where  ?" 

Paying  no  heed  to  this,  Adelaide  developed 
her  line  of  reasoning.  "Yet  some  of  them 


Felix  Ignores  the  Rules        1 1  j 

want  to  show  me  some  attention.  It  seems  un- 
gracious not  to  accept." 

"And  accept  we  do,  dinners  and  all,"  Felix 
lamented.  "And  there  are  parties  afterwards 
that  keep  you  up  all  night.  Towards  sunrise 
the  gayest  ball  may  drag  a  trifle.  Then  awful 
things  happen." 

"For  instance  ?"  The  old  lady  felt  relish  for 
detail.  "In  my  days  young  people  liked  to 
dance." 

"Dance !"  Felix  grew  eloquent.  "Think  of 
your  mortal  body !  You've  dined  from  nine 
till  eleven,  smirking  till  you  want  to  rub  the 
grin  off  at  a  lady  who  isn't  amusing  to  talk  to, 
and  with  whom  your  wife  doesn't  allow  you  to 
flirt.  Only  because  it's  bad  manners,  no  mean 
jealousy.  Though  why  they  let  the  women 
come  rigged  out  as  they  do,  unless  ..." 

"Felix!"  Adelaide  remonstrated. 

"Well,  then,  where  was  I?  From  eleven  to 
twelve  you  put  home  for  repairs.  Then  the 
ball  begins.  By  two  you've  had  all  the  dancing 
necessary  to  your  happiness.  By  four  you 


1 1 8       The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

drift  into  a  corner  with  some  poor  soul  who  is 
as  talked  out  as  you  are.  At  that  hour  discreet 
topics  do  not  crowd  forward.  Beside,  by  that 
time,  she  generally  looks  for  something  dif- 
ferent to  keep  her  awake.  Poor  lady,  she's 
tired,  too,  and  it  takes  a  pretty  stiff  pace.  You 
set  it  faster  and  faster,  to  stave  off  the  scandal 
of  your  both  being  found  asleep  in  each 
other's  arms — a  situation  Mrs.  Noel  would 
surely  misinterpret,  though  I  might  be  able  to 
explain  it  to  my  wife." 

"I  never  heard  such  nonsense  in  all  my  life," 
the  old  lady  averred.  "Am  I  to  believe  that 
your  habit,  before  marriage,  was  to  be  abed 
every  night  by  ten?  And  as  for  Adelaide's 
lunches,  can't  you  make  use  of  the  time  when 
she  is  off  to  put  in  a  good  day's  work?" 

"Work!"  Felix  lamented.  "After  such  a 
night?  Never  a  line.  Can't  even  read  for  the 
fatigue  of  the  evening  before,  and  the  horror 
of  the  evening  to  come !" 

Mrs.  Laurence  shook  her  head.  "That  is 
bad !  Why  not  trot  off  to  a  quiet,  sober  town, 


Felix  Ignores  the  Rules        1 1 9 

to  Paris,  where  there  is  no  temptation  to  stay 
abroad  after  sunset?" 

"Yes,  we  must  go,"  Felix  struck  in  hope- 
fully. "But  not  yet.  Mrs.  Noel  says  it's 
proper  for  us  to  stick  in  our  roots  here  first,  so 
as  to — why  is  it,  Adelaide?  Some  reason  I 
bow  to,  without  quite  fathoming  .  .  ." 

"When  you  do  go,"  Mrs.  Laurence  solemnly 
adjured  Adelaide,  "you  must  be  careful  not  to 
let  Carrillac  see  what  a  little  provincial  you 
are,  my  child." 

The  old  lady's  tone  brought  a  slightly  of- 
fended expression  to  Adelaide's  face,  but  her 
admonitions  went  on,  undisturbed.  "You 
know  by  now,  if  you've  any  sense,"  she  was 
ruthless,  "that  every  woman  who  claps  eyes  on 
your  husband  is  always  thinking  how  many 
thousand  times  better  she  understands  him 
than  you  can  ever  hope  to.  Carrillac's  wife 
will  of  course  be  certain  you're  making  a  mess 
of  it,  and  that  will  put  you  at  a  disadvantage, 
whatever  you  do." 

"Oh,  come!"     Felix  hurried  to  his  wife's 


1 20       The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

rescue.  "They  will  see  at  a  glance  that  Ade- 
laide .  .  ."  Suddenly  he  stopped,  blush- 
ing. 

"I  do  believe,  I  actually  believe  you  are  still 
in  love  with  her,  after  a  fashion."  The  old 
lady  marvelled.  "The  fact  is,"  she  went  on 
with  the  air  of  a  person  on  whom  new  light 
has  broken,  "we  were  all  of  us  wrong  about 
your  poet,  Adelaide.  He's  a  domestic  charac- 
ter. We  stupidly  supposed  because  he  has  a 
great  deal  of  what  you  young  fry  are  pleased 
to  call  temperament,  that  he  would  necessarily 
be  whisking  off  after  every  petticoat  in  sight, 
but  you,  his  own!  Not  a  bit  of  it!  They 
whisk  after  him,  of  course,  but  he  can  work 
himself  off  in  his  poetry.  Imagination  takes 
the  place  of  action.  Do  you  see  what  I  mean  ? 
He  doesn't  care  for  women  in  the  least  and 
that's  the  saving  truth.  Where  a  tuppenny  ver- 
sifier has  to  run  out  and  warm  himself  at  all 
sorts  of  horrid  little  bonfires,  this  creature, 
whom  you  drag  about  to  dull  parties,  can  shut 
himself  up  alone  in  a  freezing  garret  and  be  a 


Felix  Ignores  the  Rules        121 

whole  volcano.  You  are  perfectly  secure,  be- 
cause the  women  he  is  thrown  with  will  always 
fall  short  of  the  beings  he  can  evoke,  by  just 
closing  his  eyes.  At  least  you  are  safe  from 
vulgar  rivals!" 

"From  vulgar  rivals?"  Adelaide  hardly 
relished  the  tone  of  this,  but  natural  curiosity 
betrayed  her  into  questioning. 

"Yes."  The  old  lady  was  relentless.  "The 
real  danger  is  from  your  own  mistakes.  Don't 
take  it  into  your  head  that  your  own  function 
in  life  is  anything  but  meekly  to  supplement 
him.  Read  your  mythology,  child !  Those  old 
Greeks  knew  everything,  and  they  always  had 
it  that  when  very  nice  girls,  very  nice  girls 
indeed,  my  dear,  married  above  them  ..." 

"Cousin  Emily,"  Adelaide  thought  this  had 
gone  far  enough,  "I'm  too  sorry."  She 
glanced  at  the  clock.  Felix  would  have  gladly 
talked  longer,  but  Adelaide  was  due  at  an  in- 
exorable dressmaker's.  A  masseuse  claimed 
Mrs.  Laurence.  Left  to  his  own  devices,  he 
strolled  aimlessly  about  the  streets,  trying  to 


122       The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

find  some  interest  in  the  typeless  faces  of 
thronging,  overdressed  shoppers.  Young 
women  who  were  decent,  but  did  not  look  it, 
talked  gaily  to  their  admirers.  Vendors  of 
boutonnieres  pressed  forward  with  insistent 
cries.  Fakirs  let  loose  crawling  mechanical 
toys  on  the  narrow  sidewalk.  At  certain  cor- 
ners flashy  men  ogled  the  passing  stream,  or 
scanned  it  for  an  expected  face.  A  newspaper 
man  brushed  against  Felix,  with  "Can't  stop, 
now.  Behind  time!"  He  jumped  on  to  a 
moving  car. 

Felix  felt  utterly  at  sea.  Work  as  a  refuge 
had  failed  him.  Threatening  rain  made  the 
idea  of  a  country  walk  or  ride  gloomy  and 
comfortless.  The  club  bored  him.  At  this 
hour  Albert  Yule  would  be  busy,  Mrs.  Le 
Grand  was  receiving,  which  meant  a  tiresome 
mob  of  visitors. 

"Ah,  there!"  A  brisk  voice  cut  in  on  his 
loneliness.  "You  certainly  don't  rubber  when 
you're  out,  Mr.  Gwynne !" 

"I  beg  your  pardon."    Confusedly  he  raised 


Felix  Ignores  the  Rules        123 

his  hat  and  confronted  the  strikingly  attired 
figure  of  Angela's  friend,  Miss  Charlie  Tone. 

"Been  trying  to  catch  you  for  two  squares," 
she  explained  in  her  easy  vernacular,  "but  you 
act  just  like  you  were  pace-making.  Never 
looked  round  once !" 

"I'm  a  brute,"  Felix  confessed,  "not  to  be 
conscious  of  your  presence." 

She  gave  him  a  quick  glance.  "None  of 
that,  my  son !  Do  you  suppose  I've  been  chas- 
ing after  you  to  hear  you  pump  hot  air?" 

"Hardly  that,"  Felix  chaffed,  "since  the 
chasing  would  naturally  be  the  other  way 
round." 

Miss  Charlie  brushed  him  aside.  "This  is 
serious !" 

"Not  Miss  Wheatland?"  he  asked. 

She  nodded.  "You  and  I  will  have  to  pull 
together  a  bit  here.  I  know  fast  enough  I'm 
not  just  in  your  set,  Mr.  Gwynne,  but  no  more 
are  you  in  mine.  You're  a  society  swell,  and 
I'm  booked  to  marry  a  floor- walker,"  she 
smiled  frankly  into  his  eyes,  "and  honestly,  I 


124       The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

fancy  his  kind  best.  I  guess  we  understand 
each  other,  now." 

"Oh,  come!"  Felix  complained.  "You've 
no  right  to  snub  me." 

"Excuse  me,"  she  handsomely  apologised. 
"I  was  wrong.  You're  no  stuffed  shirt.  Is 
that  rain !" 

"Rain  and  sleet.  Here's  a  hansom,"  Felix 
suggested.  "Let's  get  in." 

Without  a  second's  hesitation,  Miss  Charlie 
plunged  into  the  cab,  brushing  the  ceiling  with 
her  nodding  plumes,  and  settled  happily  to  a 
long  chat. 

"Up  and  down  a  quiet  street,  slow!"  Felix 
ordered  the  driver.  "Now,  Miss  Tone,  what 
is  it?" 

The  tale  she  poured  forth  was,  in  fact,  no 
more  than  he  already  knew,  but  even  he  had 
not  realised  to  what  extent  trouble  was  prey- 
ing upon  little  Angela's  health  and  spirits. 
Charlie  felt  gravely  worried  about  her.  "They 
give  her  a  lot  of  glad  rags  and  trot  her  around 
to  functions,  and  half  of  what  that  costs  would 


Felix  Ignores  the  Rules        125 

send  her  out  to  Manila  and  set  her  up  at 
housekeeping.  He's  a  nice  boy,"  she  added  in 
pleased  reminiscence. 

"Good  enough  for  her?"    Felix  doubted  it. 

"Nothing  at  all  the  matter  with  Tommy, 
and  any  way,  she'll  die  without  him.  That's 
the  point,"  Charlie  went  on.  "Angela's  queer. 
Like  a  story-book  girl.  She  don't  act  spoony 
or  anything,  but  she's  got  to  have  him,  right 
enough,  no  one  else  will  do !" 

This  sense  of  immediate  danger  to  his  little 
friend  quite  sufficed  to  set  Felix  on  fire,  and  the 
next  hour  passed  in  concocting  plots  and  coun- 
ter-plots, Miss  Tone  particularly  favouring  a 
conspiracy  for  uniting  Angela  and  Tommy  on 
the  occasion  of  her  own  marriage  to  Mr.  Web- 
ber. "She  could  hold  out  six  months  or  so 
fast  enough,  if  that  was  settled,"  Miss  Char- 
lie affirmed.  "And  couldn't  you  hustle  a 
bit  and  get  him  leave;  on  the  quiet,  you 
know?" 

"Yes,"  Felix  saw  it  all,  "he  could  stop  with 
us.  My  wife  would  help.  Then  we  could  give 


126       The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

them  a  wedding  in  the  country.  I  thought  of 
that  before." 

At  this,  Miss  Charlie  looked  queer.  "Of 
course,"  she  assented  drily.  "That  would  be 
the  best  yet !" 

It  had  been  drizzling  for  some  time,  and  a 
creepy  spring  chill  suggested  the  comfort  of 
tea.  Telling  their  driver  to  wait,  Felix  es- 
corted Miss  Charlie  to  a  popular  restaurant, 
where,  with  elbows  intimately  planted  on  a 
small  table,  the  pair  continued  to  lay  plans 
with  such  absorption  as  to  be  quite  uncon- 
scious of  various  astonished  glances  cast  upon 
them. 

"Gwynne  beginning  to  kick  over  the  traces," 
was  shortly  reported  at  the  club.  "Might  find 
a  quieter  way  to  do  it.  There  are  plenty  of 
other  places  he  could  take  her." 

Two  ladies  hastening  to  tea  and  bridge  at 
Mrs.  Wheatland's,  with  their  own  modest  eyes 
saw  Felix  emerge  from  the  hostelry,  accom- 
panying a  "flagrant"  creature,  whom  he  was 
so  loath  to  leave  that  several  carriages  were 


Felix  Ignores  the  Rules        127 

blocked,  while  "her"  hansom  stood  at  the  awn- 
ing for  last  words  of  an  obviously  confidential 
nature.  As  she  finally  drove  off,  the  ladies  dis- 
tinctly heard  him  say,  "On  Monday,  then?" 
This  they  duly  carried  to  Mrs.  Wheatland, 
who  at  once  commented  in  an  edifying  voice, 
upon  the  misery  certain  to  follow  hasty  and  ill- 
considered  marriages. 

Screened  behind  an  ugly  urn,  Angela 
brewed  a  fresh  pot  in  trembling  silence. 

"Was  it  any — actress  you  knew  by  sight?" 
Desiring  to  prolong  this  object  lesson,  Mrs. 
Wheatland  used  a  polite  synonym. 

The  ladies  gave  a  pregnant  dumbshow  of 
respect  for  Angela's  innocence. 

"Hardly  an  actress,  I  think!"  the  chairman 
of  the  information  committee  volunteered  with 
lowered  voice. 

"What  did  she  look  like?"  Angela 
spoke. 

"Just  a  showy  pers*on,  my  dear."  This 
came  soothingly,  it  being  desirable  that  young 
girls,  though  well-terrorised,  should  never  re- 


128       The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

ceive  full  enlightenment  as  to  the  exact  nature 
of  nebulous  horrors. 

"Had  she  big  brown  eyes,  and  rosy  cheeks, 
with  a  very  big  pompadour?"  Angela  asked. 

"Well  now,  I  fancy  perhaps  she  had."  This 
admission  came  with  grudging  reserve. 

"Then,  mamma,  she's  a  particular  friend  of 
mine,  and  I  introduced  her  to  him."  At  bay 
behind  her  teacups,  Angela  recklessly  sacri- 
ficed the  secret  of  her  illicit  intercourse  with 
Charlie  Tone. 

"Girls  have  such  funny  little  whims,"  Mrs. 
Wheatland  explained  with  vast  self-control. 
"Angela  is  always  imagining  that  she  likes  to 
associate  with  people  not  of  her  own  class. 
She  is  constantly  picking  up  such  odd  acquaint- 
ances." 

"But  Mr.  Gwynne?"  The  ladies  failed  to 
grasp  the  underlying  situation.  "Why  should 
he  go  about  with  this  young  woman?" 

Angela  hated  lying,  but  she  also  saw  that  a 
vigorous  falsehood  could  alone  be  of  use  to 
Felix.  The  effort  to  steady  her  voice  gave  her 


Felix  Ignores  the  Rules        129 

answer  an  extra  ring  of  defiance.  "I  asked 
him  to  find  Charlotte  Tone,  and  give  her  a 
message !" 

"Angela,  isn't  it  time  for  you  to  dress? 
You  know,  dear  Howard  is  coming  early  to 
dinner.  Mrs.  Le  Grand's  circus  party  for 
Bessy  is  to-night,"  Mrs.  Wheatland  ex- 
plained to  the  now  bewildered  ladies,  with  out- 
ward graciousness,  but  inwardly  deploring 
that  any  girl  could  pass  the  spanking  age  with- 
out at  all  reaching  years  of  discretion ! 


CHAPTER  IX 
Crane  anO  ffoj 

ABOUT  the  time  that  Mrs.  Le  Grand 
reached  a  decision  that  "something" 
should  be  done  for  the  Gvvynnes,  Albert  Yule 
also  decided  upon  a  dinner  for  the  Herbert 
Heatons.  This,  in  Mrs.  Le  Grand's  view,  was 
a  heaven-sent  opportunity  to  begin  Adelaide's 
education. 

"Have  Gather  and  his  wife,"  she  jotted 
down  names,  "then  Mrs.  Worthing  and  the 
boy,  too,  of  course.  You  and  me,  with  Heaton 
and  his  wife;  that  makes  enough." 

Albert  more  than  suspected  himself  of  being 
the  tamest  of  tame  cats  at  the  hearth  of  this 
pleasant  friend,  who  always  understood,  who 
was  always  clever  enough,  never  fatiguingly 
so.  The  idea  of  a  sentimental  tinge  in  his  re- 
gard for  her  never  presented  itself.  Her  as- 
130 


Crane  and  Fox  131 

sured  intimacy  was  merely  a  means  of  soften- 
ing the  loneliness  of  bachelorhood,  without 
risking  closer  adjustment  with  some  untried 
companion.  Marriage  equally  allured  and 
alarmed  Albert.  Alice  afforded  him  an  unim- 
peachable and  satisfactory  compromise.  Long 
ago,  scenting  an  "affair,"  people  were  inclined 
to  "talk."  Gradually  they  ratified  this  rela- 
tion as  belonging  to  that  curious  class  of  in- 
timacy which  in  time  becomes  sanctioned  by 
usage.  Finally  they  were  convinced  that, 
while  being  a  good  wife  to  Harry  Le  Grand,  a 
restless-minded  woman  like  Alice  really  needed 
some  one  else  to  talk  to — and  why  not  Albert 
Yule  ?  Consequently,  in  the  lapse  of  years,  the 
lady  fell  into  a  habit  of  exercising  full  control 
over  her  friend  in  such  small  matters  as  the 
personnel  of  his  dinners. 

"The  reason  I  am  so  eager,"  she  persisted, 
"is  that  Herbert  Heaton  and  his  wife  belong 
to  Adelaide's  world,  yet  they  go  with  the  stripe 
of  people  Felix  has  been  used  to,  over  there. 
It  is  good  for  Adelaide  to  learn  the  difference 


132       The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

between  the  real  thing  and  that  deplorable 
crew  the  Noels  raked  together  for  the  poor 
man's  entertainment." 

"Does  she  know  Gather's  wife?"  Albert 
contested  every  inch  of  a  losing  fight. 

Mrs.  Le  Grand  believed  that  they  had  ex- 
changed visits,  without,  however,  meeting. 
"Just  as  well,"  she  confessed.  "Mrs.  Gather  is 
an  enchanting  creature,  with  that  smooth, 
early-Florentine  profile,  and  startling  modern 
point  of  view ;  but  when  I  called,  she  held  their 
baby  in  one  hand  and  her  cigarette  in  the  other. 
Yet  I've  seldom  passed  a  pleasanter  hour." 

"That  is  it,  exactly,"  Yule  pointed  out. 
"When  Mrs.  Worthing  smokes  between 
courses,  Maude  Gather  will  do  it  too.  Mrs. 
Gwynne  won't  fancy  that." 

"She  may  not  mind  them."  Mrs.  Le  Grand 
would  not  be  discouraged.  "It  was  the  baby 
that  made  the  real  complication.  Still,  if  you 
don't  feel  like  chancing  it  .  .  ." 

Thus  adjured,  Albert  could  only  yield,  and 
still  prompted  by  his  Mentor,  he  made  the 


Crane  and  Fox  133 

guests  assemble  in  a  lately  discovered  Italian 
restaurant,  overlooking  a  square,  far  from  the 
haunts  of  civilised  man. 

Signer  Rossi  provided  a  private  room  and 
himself  saw  to  the  cooking.  The  Signora  left 
her  place  at  the  desk,  to  conduct  Mr.  Yule's 
friends  up  a  stairway  none  too  clean,  but 
broad,  and  boasting  a  rail  of  old  mahogany. 
From  a  lower  room,  patrons  with  hair  en 
brosse,  peered  out  at  the  strange  ladies.  Mrs. 
Le  Grand  was  savouring  all  the  safe  delights 
of  tempered  adventure.  Adelaide  controlled 
the  recoil  of  a  person  to  whom  no  adventure  is 
pleasant.  Why,  she  wondered,  could  Albert 
Yule  not  have  them  at  his  own  comfortable 
table,  instead  of  coming  down  into  this  dingy 
house,  in  a  dingy  quarter  ? 

Harold  Gather  and  Mrs.  Worthing  were  al- 
ready looking  out  over  the  square,  exclaiming 
at  the  sweetness  of  a  loitering  spring  sunset. 
The  bare  boughs  of  maples,  burgeoning  with 
lumpy  buds,  were  outlined  against  a  tranquil 
sky.  An  early  star  showed  blue  in  the  wan- 


1 34       The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

ing,  pink  glow.  Lights  flickered  in  the  arcade 
of  an  old  building.  Voices  of  girls  and  young 
men  came  from  paths  and  benches  in  the  square 
beneath.  Parties  of  Italians  sauntered  out  to 
enjoy  the  quiet.  Children  wavered  along  the 
broad  walks,  a  batch  of  tottering  babies  in  con- 
voy of  an  older  sister,  herself  not  far  past 
babyhood.  One  rusty  tramp  scattered  crumbs 
to  a  family  of  sparrows.  Across  the  open 
space,  groups  dimly  seen  were  collecting  about 
the  newspaper  offices.  Near  a  fountain,  an 
itinerant  preacher  bellowed  of  eternal  punish- 
ment to  a  lethargic  audience. 

Eager-eyed,  vibrating  with  sympathy,  Felix 
drank  it  all  in,  this  happy  exhalation  of  a  city 
relaxed  and  breathing  after  the  hard  day's 
work.  An  organ  burst  forth  on  the  side- 
walk .  .  .  "Funiculi,  Funicula."  A  girl  be- 
gan to  sing,  stridently,  but  with  ineffable 
charm.  The  children  were  dancing.  Felix 
turned  with  an  intimate  smile  to  his  wife.  She 
was  watching  the  scene  below  with  uncompre- 
hending pity.  "The  poor  souls,"  she  presently 


Crane  and  Fox  135 

murmured.  "Fancy  their  having  spirit  to 
dance  .  .  ." 

"And  Gather  here  denies,"  Herbert  Hea- 
ton's  high-pitched  voice  broke  in  on  them, 
"that  movement  and  music  really  are  co-or- 
dinating impulses.  You  and  I,  Gwynne,  who 
have  a  drop  of  Dago  in  us,  know  better.  See 
how  that  organ  keyed  up  everything  on  the 
stage,  down  there.  See  that  young  fellow  kiss 
his  girl!  See  their  feet  grow  frisky!  Even 
the  crone  staggering  under  her  load  of  wood 
has  quickened  her  pace  ..." 

At  table,  Adelaide  found  herself  between 
Gather  and  the  Worthing  boy,  a  clever  lad, 
citizen  of  all  countries,  at  home  and  interested 
in  all  companies. 

"Isn't  it  a  wonderful  thing,"  he  asked  in  the 
privileged  manner  of  Cherubinos  all  the  world 
over,  "to  see  Mr.  Gwynne  every  day,  to  live  in 
the  house  with  him?  I  feel  as  if  it  would  be 
too  much  excitement  for  me,  and  what  it  must 
be  for  a  woman !  Aren't  you  afraid  sometimes 
that  it  will  burn  you  up?  Weren't  there 


136       The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

mortal  girls  in  the  mythologies,  who  pegged 
out  from  being  too  much  with  the  gods?" 

It  was  the  second  time  that  Adelaide  had 
been  plainly  told  that  she  ranked  as  her  hus- 
band's inferior,  and  the  sudden  revelation  that 
this  free-spoken  youth  probably  voiced  the 
opinion  of  every  one  at  table  swept  away  any 
resentment  she  might  have  felt  at  his  imperti- 
nence. All  at  once,  she  wanted  to  know  more, 
to  get  at  this  hidden  point  of  view,  but  how 
to  begin  ?  Certainly  she  could  ask  no  ques- 
tions. 

Arthur  Worthing,  however,  needed  only  an 
opening.  "I  know  a  little  what  it's  like  my- 
self," the  boy  went  on,  with  a  note  of  regret 
in  his  clear,  young  voice.  "My  father  was  just 
writing  a  lot,  successfully  I  mean,  when  he 
died.  My  mother  used  half  to  kill  herself  to 
keep  him  from  being  bothered.  She  tackled  all 
the  bores  and  duns,  and  copied  his  manuscripts. 
I  can  just  remember  her  banging  away  on  the 
typewriter,  late  at  night  in  the  room  where  I 
slept.  And  one  day  when  the  cross  landlady 


Crane  and  Fox  137 

came  in,  and  made  a  row  about  back 
rent  .  .  ." 

This  easy  allusion  to  things  unmentionable 
put  a  touch  of  frost  into  Adelaide's  reply. 
Why  try  to  measure  herself  by  such  people? 
They  were  different.  Beside,  Mrs.  Worthing, 
with  her  free  ways  and  constant  laugh,  did  not 
suggest  the  devoted  being  of  her  son's  picture. 
"That  must  have  been  rather  hard  on  the  land- 
lady," was  her  only  comment. 

At  this,  the  boy  frankly  stared.  "There's  a 
regular  beast  next  me,"  he  promptly  reported 
to  his  neighbour,  the  early-Florentine  Mrs. 
Gather. 

Adelaide  gave  ear  to  the  general  talk. 

Herbert  Heaton,  with  much  gesticulation, 
was  dissecting  a  recent  play.  "I  tell  you,"  he 
grew  quite  excited,  "psychologically,  it's  away 
off,  all  after  the  second  act." 

"Yes,"  chimed  in  Mrs.  Worthing.  "No 
man  would  keep  on  with  a  light-o'-love  who 
did  nothing  but  shed  tears,  for  how  long  was 
it,  months?" 


138       The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

"And  then,"  Heaton  went  on  quite  as  ear- 
nestly as  if  it  could  possibly  matter,  "she 
started  out  by  being  a  lady  who  relished  diver- 
sion." 

"Yes,"  Mrs.  Worthing  made  dramatic  ges- 
tures. "In  real  life  it  would  have  gone  like 
this  .  .  .  !  She  would  say,  'The  other  one 
is  my  real  fancy,  but  since  you  are  here,  and  he 
is  not,  and  you've  been  so  good  as  to  buy  me 
tickets  .  .  .'" 

With  absurd  feminine  movements  of  the 
hands,  Heaton  cut  in,  "I'll  just  slip  my 
bonnet  on,  and  we'll  step  round  to  the 
show." 

"And  her  explanation,"  Mrs.  Worthing  ob- 
jected, "when  the  other  man  came  back.  A 
practical  girl,  with  an  eye  to  the  main  chance, 
would  have  said  right  out,  'Of  course,  while 
you  were  off,  and  he  was  putting  up  for 
me  .  .  .'  " 

"Adelaide!"  At  this  juncture,  Mrs.  Le 
Grand  caught  sight  of  Adelaide's  face,  and 
hastily  tumbled  to  her  rescue.  "Mr.  Yule 


Crane  and  Fox  139 

wants  you  notice  this  spaghetti.  Rossi's 
the  only  man  in  town  who  does  it  just 
so!" 

But  the  guests  were  not  to  be  quelled.  Hea- 
ton  and  Mrs.  Worthing,  it  is  true,  temporarily 
subsided,  as  Mrs.  Heaton,  a  prosperous  and 
conventionally  attired  woman  from  whom 
Mrs.  Le  Grand  expected  only  help,  at  once 
took  up  the  thread. 

"I  don't  think,"  she  deliberately  addressed 
the  table,  "that  we  have  many  adequate  studies 
of  vicious  instincts  yet,  on  the  stage.  Except 
perhaps  Hedda  Gabbler.  They  always  bring 
in  extenuating  circumstances,  to  create  sym- 
pathy." 

"What  about  Hedda's  husband?"  Mrs. 
Gather  cut  it.  "Wouldn't  he  extenuate  any- 
thing? And  it's  the  same  in  fiction,  too. 
Think  how  poor  Emma  Bovary  was  bored,  be- 
fore she  started  out  to  faire  la  nocel  Don't 
you  agree  with  me,  Mrs.  Gwynne?" 

Albert  Yule  watched  uneasily.  Did  malice 
lurk  in  those  oblique,  pale-lashed  eyes?  Or 


140       The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

did  Mrs.  Gather  in  good  faith  class  Adelaide 
as  one  of  themselves? 

"I've  never  read  the  book."  Adelaide  was 
fairly  at  bay. 

"Quite  right,  Mrs.  Gwynne !"  Unexpected 
aid  came  from  Gather.  "Horrid  attenuated 
stuff.  We  want  something  warmer  blooded, 
more  in  sympathy.  There  is  no  end  of  good 
and  kindness  running  through  the  worst  cor- 
ruption, even  of  a  big  city." 

"Tell  them  about  the  policeman,"  Mrs. 
Gather  prompted. 

"I  didn't  see  this  myself."  Gather  turned 
his  dreamy,  delicate  face  to  Adelaide,  evidently 
thinking  the  enemy  of  Emma  Bovary  would 
rejoice  in  hearing  good  of  her  kind.  "A 
doctor  told  me.  Through  his  work  he  knows 
the  town,  really  knows  it  .  .  ." 

"What  we  all  should  do,  if  we  weren't  so 
lazy,"  approved  Mrs.  Heaton. 

"Yes,  I  think  so."  Felix  was  enjoying  him- 
self immensely,  and  had  quite  forgotten  Ade- 
laide's sensitiveness.  "Even  seeing  it  so,  su- 


Crane  and  Fox  141 

perficially,  out  that  window,  makes  you  feel 
what  a  lot  you  lose,  never  going  deeper.  I 
wish  I  knew  your  doctor,  Gather." 

"Not  hard  to  manage;  he  thinks  fine  things 
of  you,"  Gather  went  on.  "He'd  be  glad  to 
take  you  about  on  his  trips,  at  night  ..." 

"But  our  story  .  .  ."  Mrs.  Heaton  re- 
minded them. 

"It's  very  slight.  O'Reilly,  a  big  policeman, 
told  how  a  man  stopped  him  to  say  there  was  a 
white  girl,  in  a  coloured  house,  in  a 
court  .  .  ." 

Adelaide  stole  a  glance  around  the  table. 
Not  only  were  they  interested,  \vomen  and  all, 
but  there  was  a  bewildering  fantastic  sense  of 
remissness  about  them,  for  not  knowing  more ! 

"You  see,"  Gather  explained,  "the  town  is 
districted.  All  the  people  in  power,  like 
O'Reilly,  know  it  as  an  African  knows  his 
jungle  paths.  They  see  that  every  tribe  keeps 
within  its  own  limits  ...  It  wasn't  much  of 
a  story,"  he  went  on  lamely,  instinctively  re- 
acting to  a  chill  current  in  the  atmosphere. 


142       The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

"Only  that  O'Reilly  got  the  girl  and  took  her 
back  to  her  mother,  made  no  arrest.  The  old 
woman  was  a  decent,  hard-working  body,  they 
had  a  comfortable  home,  but  the  girl  came 
straight  back.  Three  times  he  dragged  her  out 
of  dens,  but  it  was  no  use.  She  had  been  born 
bad,  as  you  say,  Mrs.  Heaton.  My  doctor  man 
saw  her  in  the  hospital.  Young  and  pretty, 
well-spoken  too,  when  she  wasn't  drunk." 

"I'd  like  to  know  O'Reilly,"  Felix  chimed 
in.  "What  a  wise  despot  he  must  be.  There  is 
something  in  that  to  touch  your  imagination." 

"He  could  show  you  a  lot."  Gather  was  de- 
lighted. "I'll  arrange  it." 

"Isn't  it  too  bad  we  can't  go  along,  Mrs. 
Gwynne?"  Mrs.  Heaton  politely  asked,  feeling 
that  Adelaide  was  rather  out  of  it.  "Women 
are  so  handicapped !" 

"Why  are  they  more  handicapped  than 
men?"  Adelaide  spoke  clearly,  and  the  table 
felt  with  pleased  surprise  that  perhaps  they 
had  not  done  Mrs.  Gwynne  justice.  She  was 
evidently  about  to  strike  her  gait. 


Crane  and  Fox  143 

"If  any  woman,"  she  went  on  deliberately, 
"should  choose  to  set  aside  all  the  restraints 
and  responsibilities  of  decency,  I  suppose  some 
one  could  be  found  to  gratify  her  objectionable 
curiosity.  I  fail  to  see  why  being  a  man  makes 
it  pardonable  to  wander  about  in — in  .  .  ." 
she  broke  off  in  disgust. 

This  time  the  situation  was  past  saving. 
Adelaide's  "gait"  left  the  guests  open-eyed 
with  dismay.  But  instead  of  being  shamed  by 
the  rebuke,  to  her  amazement,  they  looked  as 
shocked  as  if  she  had  introduced  an  unseemly 
topic  for  general  conversation.  Herbert  Hea- 
ton's  volatile  spirits  had  escaped  through  the 
roof.  His  wife,  having  no  definite  responsi- 
bility, simply  gave  up  hope  of  a  rally.  The 
boy  and  Mrs.  Gather  frankly  watched  the 
show. 

At  this  minute,  Signor  Rossi  bustled  in  with 
a  note.  "Signora  Le  Grand?"  he  questioned. 
"The  gentleman  waits  below !" 

"Let  me  see  what  it  is!"  Albert  Yule  hur- 
ried from  the  room,  ready  to  welcome  any  mis- 


144       The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

hap  that  might  break  up  so  ill-starred  a  fes- 
tivity. 

The  company  waited  with  a  breathless  sense 
of  misfortune.  Presently  the  host  came  back, 
looking  elaborately  reassured.  "Your  hus- 
band had  a  tumble,  jumping  off  a  car,"  he  ex- 
plained to  Alice.  "Nothing  serious,  but  they 
took  him  to  the  hospital  and  will  keep  him  over 
night.  One  of  the  house  doctors  came  himself 
to  tell  you.  Will  you  go  down  .  .  ." 

Whatever  Alice  might  feel  towards  Harry 
as  a  companion,  as  a  husband  in  trouble  he 
commanded  her  instant  care  and  affection. 
The  queer  grip  at  her  throat,  when  she  found 
him  stretched  in  a  neat  cot,  could  not  have 
been  more  genuine,  had  she  habitually  enjoyed 
his  conversation.  The  big  hospital  had  settled 
down  into  nightly  quiet.  Nurses  moved  softly 
in.  the  dim  corridors,  white-clad  internes 
paused  here  and  there  for  an  order,  for  an  end 
of  flirtation.  In  a  private  room,  Harry  him- 
self had  adjusted  the  electric  light  so  as  to  fall 
on  his  evening  paper.  Soothed  by  an  opiate, 


Crane  and  Fox  145 

he  presented  no  appearance  of  pain  or  injury. 
A  broken  ankle,  he  explained.  Not  serious, 
but  needing  great  care.  To-morrow,  after 
the  X-ray  examination,  he  could  be  carried 
home. 

"But  I  don't  understand  yet  how  it  hap- 
pened," Alice  asked  when  the  nurse  had  con- 
siderately left  them  alone. 

The  look  of  annoyance  on  Harry's  face 
deepened  to  intense  disgust. 

"It  will  surprise  you  to  learn,"  he  grunted, 
"that,  in  a  way,  I  have  your  Mr.  Felix  Gwynne 
to  thank  for  this !" 

"Felix!  Why,  he  has  been  with  us  all  the 
evening!"  Alice  protested. 

Harry  thought  it  over.  "That  wasn't  quite 
true,  what  I  said.  It's  all  my  own  fault."  He 
turned  beet-red,  "And  it  is  going  to  make  me 
hot  to  think  of  it,  to  the  last  day  I  live !"  Then 
the  story  came  out.  On  the  platform  of  a 
crowded  car,  he  had  been  so  foolish  as  to  re- 
peat to  another  man  a  bit  of  gossip.  Felix 
being  seen  having  tea  where  everybody  went, 


146       The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

with  a  woman  most  entirely  off  colour.  Le 
Grand  and  his  friend  uttered  manly  disap- 
proval of  Gwynne's  not  giving  his  misdeeds  a 
suitably  private  setting.  "I'd  just  said,  'Think 
of  all  the  places  he  could  take  her  and  nobody 
be  the  wiser,'  when  a  fellow  on  the  platform 
slapped  my  face."  The  said  face  actually 
turned  white  at  the  memory.  "A  counter- 
skipper  beggar,  but  he  was  strong.  I  hit  back, 
hard,  in  the  eye,  too.  Thought  it  would  floor 
him ;  wasn't  quick  enough  when  he  got  back  at 
me;  didn't  expect  it  of  him.  He  threw  me 
off  and  broke  my  leg."  Harry  fell  grimly 
silent. 

Alice's  entire  experience  of  life  furnished 
her  with  no  suitable  reply. 

In  a  minute,  Harry  went  on,  savagely. 
"The  man  jumped  off  and  stood  over  me.  He 
said  .  .  .  That  lady  is  going  to  be  my  wife. 
Here's  my  name  and  address.'  I've  got  the 
thing  somewhere."  From  the  wallet  at  his 
side,  Harry  produced  a  neat  business 
card  . 


Crane  and  Fox  147 


MR.  RUDOLPH  WEBBER 

Clothing  Department,  Stein's 


"You  can  hardly  .  .  ."  Alice  faltered. 

"No,  that  is  just  it."  Harry  turned  red,  and 
white  again.  "I  can't  send  my  seconds  to  look 
him  up  on  the  third  floor.  My  account,  the 
official  one,  is — a  tumble.  I  can't  do  an 
earthly  thing  to  him,  but  stomach  my  licking 
and  keep  my  head  shut.  You  see,  if  she  is  his 
girl,  the  fellow's  all  right,  confound  him !  I'd 
no  business  to  be  talking  of  her,  and  I  can't 
wait  till  I'm  out  of  plaster,  and  go  and  thrash 
him  in  cold  blood  for  doing  what  any  decent 
man  would  do  in  his  place.  But  I  tell  you, 
Alice,  I  have  it  in  for  Master  Felix  for  letting 
me  in  for  such  a  mess !  Why  can't  he  carry  on 
with  a  woman  of  his  own  class,  or  else  run 
quietly  with — the  others?" 


CHAPTER  X 
•Racbel  JBernstefn 

ALTHOUGH  a  street  fight  and  a  broken 
ankle  might  fall  to  Harry  Le  Grand's 
share,  all  odium  attached  to  this  mishap  in 
some  inscrutable  way  fastened  upon  Felix. 
Nobody,  of  course,  "told,"  but  the  vague  and 
discreditable  rumours  afloat  proved  in  the  long 
run  more  relentlessly  damaging  than  if  Mr. 
Gwynne  himself  had  been  brought  home 
nightly  by  the  patrol  wagon.  Kept  fully  mis- 
informed by  Mrs.  Noel,  Adelaide  never  hinted 
at  these  rumours,  but  distrusting  the  effect  of 
town  life  upon  Felix,  she  soon  grew  as  eager 
as  ever  he  had  been  to  settle  for  the  summer 
at  Chastellux. 

Not  long  after  their  installation,  Felix  came 
home  from  some  hours  of  absence,  bounded 
upstairs  and  burst  into  her  sitting-room,  with- 
148 


Rachel  Bernstein  149 

out  so  much  as  a  knock,  or  "by  your  leave." 
She  now  understood  her  husband  sufficiently 
to  read  anger  in  his  white  face  and  irritable 
brows. 

"There  is  some  one  we  must  invite  here  for 
next  Sunday,"  he  began  breathlessly. 

Adelaide  met  this  with  gracious  surprise. 
Hitherto  he  had  shown  no  wish  to  break  their 
solitude. 

"And  we  must  have  other  people,  too,"  he 
went  on,  "a  lot  of  them.  Your  friends,  not 
mine." 

"Lily  Northrup,  will  she  do?"  Adelaide 
was  ready  for  his  bidding. 

"Yes,  and  two  nice  men.  It's  a  girl  named 
Tone,"  he  smiled  confidentially,  "and  her  beau. 
We  must  make  a  fuss  over  them." 

Adelaide's  willingness  had  frozen.  "And 
may  I  ask  ...  ?" 

"Of  course,  it  may  seem  queer,  but  there's 
a  reason."  Felix  came  to  her  side.  "I  hardly 
know  how  to  speak  to  you  of  anything  so  hor- 
rid, but  perhaps  you  had  better  know." 


150       The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

"Thank  you,"  she  drew  away  from  him, 
"but  I  know  more  than  enough  already." 

"Do  you  mean — why!  Who  could  have 
been  ass  enough  to  bother  you  with  that? 
Why  didn't  you  come  straight  to  me?  I  never 
heard  a  syllable  till  to-day,  at  the  club,  and  of 
course  the  only  thing  is  for  you  to  befriend  her 
at  once,  publicly.  Otherwise  the  girl's  reputa- 
tion might  suffer." 

"Will  you  ever  learn  to  think  about  your 
own  reputation,  Felix?"  Adelaide  asked  in  af- 
fectionate despair.  "And  think  of  the  posi- 
tion you  put  me  in,  all  the  time!" 

"My  reputation!"  Felix  pulled  up  short. 
"No,  I  do  not  usually  worry  greatly  about  it. 
But  if,  by  being  heedless,  I've  put  Miss  Tone 
in  a  hole,  it  is  my  business  to  help  her  out, 
don't  you  see?  And  naturally,  it  can  only  be 
done  through  you." 

Adelaide  felt  that  the  moment  had  come. 
"No,  dear,  I  do  not  quite  see.  If  this  Miss 
Tone,  who  knows  perfectly  well  what  she's 
about,  choses  to  compromise  herself  by  unsuit- 


Rachel  Bernstein  151 

able  behaviour,  that  is  her  own  affair,  but 
hardly  reason  for  my  making  friends  with  a 
shopgirl." 

For  a  full  minute  Felix  stared  at  his  wife. 
Then  he  began  patiently,  as  if  speaking  to  an 
invalid,  or  a  very  old  person.  "I  asked  Miss 
Tone  to  have  tea  with  me,  because  it  was  rain- 
ing and  we  were  both  chilled  through,  from 
driving  up  and  down  in  a  damp  cab.  We  had 
been  talking  about  Angela,  planning  to  give 
her  a  hand,  do  you  see?" 

At  this,  Adelaide  could  not  forbear  from 
raising  her  eyebrows,  his  explanation  seemed 
even  less  creditable  than  the  rumours. 

Felix  went  on,  with  growing  indignation : 
"Some  pure-minded  being  saw  us,  concluded 
we  were  on  a  spree.  Harry  Le  Grand  gos- 
sipped  about  it  in  the  car,  and  Miss  Tone's  fu- 
ture husband  gave  him  the  licking  that  he  jolly 
well  earned.  Now  if  you  have  her  here,  it  sets 
the  whole  business  straight.  I  daren't  make 
one  move,  myself,  because  of  everything. 
Then  her  young  man  wouldn't  like  it." 


152       The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

Adelaide  shook  her  head.  "Really,  Felix, 
if  shopgirls  .  .  .  No?  Stenographers,  then, 
take  tea  with  gentlemen  at  fashionable  restau- 
rants, they  must  bear  the  consequences.  It's 
far  better  for  her  to  have  a  sharp  lesson,  now, 
than  to  gloss  the  thing  over,  and  .  .  ." 

The  mobile  brows  formed  a  straight  line 
over  Felix's  dark-blue  eyes,  again  he  stared 
fixedly  at  his  wife.  Then  he  laughed. 
"Bless  your  heart,  how  you  relieve  my  con- 
science !" 

Adelaide's  face  marked  a  complete  inability 
to  follow. 

"Don't  you  see,  dear  child?  Once  in  a  while 
I've  felt  that  possibly  it  was  hard  on  you  keep- 
ing step  with  an  irregular  creature  like  me,  and 
I've  tried,  honestly  tried,  to  fall  in  line.  But 
now,  I  see  you  would  be  the  last  person  to  de- 
mand such  a  thing.  You've  too  big  a  sense  of 
justice.  You  believe  in  every  one's  coming  in 
plumb  for  the  result  of  their  own  actions. 
Miss  Tone  has  been  imprudent,  let  her  pay  the 
price !  You  married  me — of  course  you  expect 


Rachel  Bernstein  153 

to  take  what  comes.  So  I'm  off,  with  a  clear 
conscience  ?" 

"Now?"     Adelaide  postponed  argument. 

"Yes,  to  town,  to  dine  with  Rachel  Bern- 
stein." 

"What  do  you  mean?"  Adelaide  thought 
this  surely  a  joke.  Her  husband  dine  with 
an  utterly  notorious,  man-eating  French  ac- 
tress ! 

"Yes."  Felix  was  evidently  quite  in  ear- 
nest. "Did  I  forget  to  tell  you?  They  have 
translated  a  thing  I  wrote  long  ago,  a  fantasy. 
She  wants  a  prologue,  to  bring  it  out  in  Paris, 
and  I  have  some  ideas  for  stage  setting.  She 
is  stopping  here  in  town,  before  they  sail,  to  go 
over  it  with  me.  I  shan't  be  back  for  a  week," 
he  added  light-heartedly.  "Just  tell  them  to 
send  my  things  to  her  hotel,  will  you.  As 
we've  no  company  coming  here,  it  will  save 
trouble  for  me  to  be  near  her  all  the  time." 

"Felix,  you  can't  really  mean  this?"  Ade- 
laide in  turn  was  angry. 

For  the  first  time,  as  he  looked  at  her,  Felix 


1 54       The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

saw  his  wife  critically.  Her  distinguished  ap- 
pearance failed  to  please  him.  It  was  associ- 
ated with  all  the  unpleasant  things  in  life. 
Why  should  this  cool,  ignorant  young  woman 
set  herself  up  as  a  mentor?  Compared  to  her 
the  robust  warmth  of  Charlie  Tone,  the  girlish 
passion  of  Angela,  the  elderly  Frenchwoman's 
wit  and  genius,  even  the  naked  shoulders  of 
Mrs.  Darling  seemed  comfortably  human.  All 
at  once  Adelaide  had  drifted  a  great  distance 
away.  He  saw  her  now,  in  ten,  in  twenty 
years.  Always  impeccably  the  same.  "By  the 
way,"  he  added  mischievously,  "did  you  know 
that  Cousin  Emily  Laurence  is  collecting  her 
memories  of  Washington  society,  during  the 
civil  war?" 

"But  listen,  Felix!"  Adelaide  strove  to  pin 
him  down. 

"She  is  busy  dictating  them  to  Miss  Tone. 
Rather  compromising  for  Cousin  Emily,  isn't 
it?  Yesterday  she  took  her  to  drive  too,  in  a 
open  victoria !" 

Suddenly  Felix  again  changed.     With  per- 


Rachel  Bernstein  155 

feet  gravity  he  came  towards  Adelaide  and  laid 
a  gentle  hand  on  her  shoulder.  "This  is  too 
bad.  Why  do  you  make  me  do  it  ?  Don't  you 
realise  that  you  are  no  match  for  me?  When 
it  comes  to  brutality,  I  can  always  lay  a  lash 
over  your  back,  and  bring  away  a  bit  of  the 
skin.  Words,  dear,  flock  at  my  bidding.  I 
can  see  in  a  flash  where  to  hit  and  hurt,  the 
place  to  draw  blood.  I  could  even  come  to  en- 
joy punishing  you.  There's  a  cruel  pleasure  in 
seeing  you  turn  white  and  never  wince.  When 
you  make  breaches,  so,  between  us,  honestly, 
I'm  terrified,  because,"  he  stroked  her  bowed 
head  tenderly,  but  with  a  new  touch,  the  ten- 
derness of  pity — "because  I  can  better  do  with- 
out you  than  you  can  spare  me.  We  love  each 
other,  Adelaide,  but  if  anything  came  between 
us,  I  have  another  passion  to  fall  back  on. 
Something  with  which  you — interfere.  You 
have  nothing  to  take  the  place  of  that,  so  you 
would  suffer  most !" 

For  the  first  time,  with  her,  Felix  was  no 
longer   humble.      Adelaide   painfully   remem- 


156       The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

bered  her  surprise  when  Arthur  Worthing  had 
spoken  of  mortal  women  mated  to  the  gods, 
spoken  without  emphasis,  as  if  her  inferiority 
must  be  patent  even  to  herself.  Was  she,  after 
all,  just  a  mere  girl,  inconsiderable  among 
thousands,  a  creature  of  no  account,  to  be 
consumed  and  cast  aside  if  she  hesitated  at  re- 
nouncing every  rule  of  ordered  life,  the 
hoarded  experience  of  staid  generations?  Was 
there  indeed  another  world,  bigger  and  legiti- 
mately different,  with  other  modes  of  conduct, 
where  right  and  wrong  merged  indisinguish- 
ably? 

"Does  Cousin  Emily  have  Rachel  Bern- 
stein, too?"  she  suddenly  asked. 

"Dear  girl,"  Felix  was  laughing  now,  not 
kindly,  "Rachel  Bernstein  has  no  spare  minutes 
for  clever  old  ladies.  Rehearsing,  massage, 
and  a  very  few  privileged  gentlemen  take  up 
her  entire  day.  Even  you  couldn't  get  her,  if 
you  wanted  her." 

"But  she  gives  you  a  week!"  Adelaide's 
voice  showed  much  discouragement.  To  be 


Rachel  Bernstein  157 

unable  to  patronise  Rachel  Bernstein  was  al- 
most as  unsuitable  as  to  be  called  upon  to  do 
so. 

"But,  as  you  often  notice,  I  am  quite  dif- 
ferent !  And  now,"  Felix  asked  gaily,  "all  over 
with  our  quarrel,  isn't  it?  I've  been  an  ass. 
Business  and  pleasure  belong  apart.  I've  not 
quite  decided  yet  which  is  which,  but  you  must 
be  one  or  the  other,  and  never  again  will  I  try 
to  mix  you  with  alien  matter.  Kiss  me  good- 
bye, and  stop  crying !" 

"I  was  not  crying."  Adelaide  felt  herself 
ranked  as  a  small  and  inefficiently  naughty 
child. 

"Oh,  no  fibs !"  Felix  took  her  in  his  arms. 
"At  least,  you're  rather  nice  to  kiss.  What  are 
you  pulling  your  face  away  for?  You  know 
you  like  it,  and  this  will  be  the  last  for  a 
week !"  With  that,  he  left  her. 

Adelaide's  trained  sense  of  order  turned  the 
seven  days  of  her  husband's  absence  to  account 
by  paying  neighbourhood  visits  and  entertain- 
ing women  at  lunch.  She  moreover  grew  ex- 


158       The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

pert  in  excuses  for  Felix's  prolonged  abode 
with  Rachel  Bernstein,  as  Mrs.  Noel,  Lily 
Northrup,  and  a  host  of  friends  found  means 
to  offer  covert  and  intolerable  sympathy.  She 
had  so  often  proclaimed  the  necessity  of  her 
husband's  absence  that  in  the  end  she  was  com- 
ing to  believe  the  truth  of  what  her  lips  con- 
stantly uttered.  Indeed,  seven  solitary  even- 
ings had  taught  her  rather  to  hope  that  he 
needs  must  leave  her,  than  to  believe  that  he 
freely  chose  to  do  so.  She  was  prepared  to 
meet  him  halfway,  to  talk  it  out,  to  consider 
his  point  of  view,  when  Felix  reappeared  in  a 
mood  of  exasperating  forgetfulness.  Their 
quarrel,  his  bitter  words,  everything  seemed 
obliterated  from  his  memory.  He  would  speak 
neither  of  the  play  nor  of  Rachel  Bernstein,  but 
showed  entire  absorption  in  a  new  motor  car. 
After  an  hour's  talk,  Adelaide  saw  what  his 
animation  and  spirits  had  heretofore  masked, 
that  he  looked  thin  and  worn  to  the  point  of 
illness. 

"Are  you  well  ?"  she  interrupted. 


Rachel  Bernstein  159 

Felix  stopped  in  mid-career  of  planning  a 
trip,  a  run  to  the  sea  by  unfrequented  roads. 
"Well?  I  suppose  so.  Working  under  pres- 
sure plays  you  out  a  little.  The  never  getting 
to  bed,  and  the  coffee.  Do  you  know,  I  never 
set  foot  out  of  the  hotel  for  a  week.  First  I 
would  write,  then  the  translation  was  awful, 
had  to  be  done  over  again.  Then  the  pro- 
logue. She's  a  wonderful  creature.  Such  in- 
sight! She  really  knows.  Together  we  did 
three  times  what  I  could  do  alone.  It  was  tre- 
mendous, the  pace,  the  ..." 

"But,  Felix!"  Adelaide's  maternal  love  of 
him  mourned  this  intemperate  energy.  "You 
have  come  out  of  it  half  dead.  And  now,  as 
likely  as  not,  you'll  stop  short  and  do  nothing 
for  weeks !" 

"Why,  yes."  Felix  was  unabashed.  "I  can 
loaf  now." 

"And  that  must  be  such  a  wasteful  way  to 
work."  Adelaide's  voice  showed  gentle  solici- 
tude. "Beside  being  bad  for  you.  If  you 
would  only  learn  to  do  a  little  every  day." 


160       The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

"You  marvellous  girl!"  All  at  once  he 
dropped  into  a  chair,  pale  and  mischievous. 
"How  can  I  ever  be  sufficiently  grateful  to 
you?  You  daily  enlarge  my  area  of  possible 
enjoyments.  In  Adam's  time  there  was  only 
the  one  forbidden  pleasure  of  eating  a  particu- 
lar apple,  but  you  have  the  talent  to  set  out 
whole  orchards.  According  to  you,  almost 
everything  is  fruit  dcfendu!"  Felix  would  as 
soon  have  stalked  abroad  in  cloak  and  plume 
as  plead  for  special  license — as  a  poet — but  the 
uncomprehended  fact  lay  like  a  bed  of  nettles 
between  him  and  his  wife,  and  the  relief  of  sar- 
casm came  ready  to  his  hand.  Presently  he 
was  repentant.  "See,  Adelaide,  Tommy  Gor- 
don has  a  leave." 

"Really!"  This  did  not  truly  interest 
her. 

"And  Angela  will  be  twenty-one  next 
week/'  he  went  on.  "Will  you  have  them  here 
together?  The  truth  is,  they  want  to  be  mar- 
ried. Think  of  a  quiet  little  wedding  at  Chas- 
tellux!  Next  week,  perhaps,  or  ...  You 


Rachel  Bernstein  161 

ought  to  see  Angela !  New  eyes,  new  voice 
and  smile,  new  pink  cheeks,  and  all  in  honour 
of  Tommy!" 

"I  wish  it  were  right."  Adelaide  really 
shrank  from  again  disobliging  her  husband. 
"But  papa  and  mamma  would  never  consent 
to  our  acting  directly  in  opposition  to  an  older 
member  of  the  family." 

"I  did  not  suppose  they  would."  Felix 
showed  those  symptoms  of  restiveness  which 
his  wife  was  learning  to  know  and  dread. 
"But  they  do  not  happen  to  own  Chastellux,  or 
me.  Never  mind,"  he  went  on.  "Angela 
doesn't  care  a  bit.  As  long  as  she  has  Tommy, 
she'd  just  as  leave  jump  over  a  broomstick  in 
their  own  back  yard,  like  a  gipsy.  I  only 
thought  a  reputable  wedding,  chaperoned  by 
you,  might  look  better.  Cousin  Emily  would 
lend  a  hand,  but  she's  off  to-morrow  for  Bar 
Harbor." 

All  the  next  day  Adelaide  debated  in  private 
whether  without  betrayal  of  family  faith,  she 
could  extend  protection  to  Angela's  runaway 


1 62       The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

match;  but  the  fear  of  a  breach,  the  shock  to 
her  parents,  Cousin  Margaret's  justifiable 
wrath,  and  above  all  the  blame  sure  to  fasten 
on  Felix,  in  the  end  counterbalanced  her  sincere 
wish  to  do  his  bidding.  For  a  day  they  lived 
with  this  between  them,  then  he  again  van- 
ished. 

Late  one  evening  he  came  back,  fled  to  his 
room  with  hardly  a  word  for  her,  but  all  night 
long  she  heard  restless  movement,  ceasing  only 
when  the  glimmer  of  early  daylight  began  to 
streak  through  closed  window  blinds. 

She  spent  a  dreary  and  idle  morning,  await- 
ing his  appearance.  The  newspaper  failed  to 
hold  her  attention,  till  her  eye  fell  on  an  item. 
At  that  minute  Felix  came  to  the  library  door, 
bearing  a  handful  of  closely  written  sheets. 
He  was  quivering  with  excitement,  forgetful 
of  everything  but  the  throes  of  production, 
which  had  held  him  till  the  relaxation  of  dawn 
suddenly  set  free  his  pen  to  write.  He  would 
read  to  her  now,  pour  it  out  in  its  freshness,  as 
it  came  from  his  very  heart  and  soul.  He 


Rachel  Bernstein  163 

looked  like  a  being  from  another  sphere,  still 
wrapped  in  the  pain  and  joy  of  creation. 

"So  they  are  married,  after  all !  How,  I 
wonder,  did  they  manage?"  Adelaide  spread 
the  journal  on  her  knee,  one  white  finger  mark- 
ing the  guilty  paragraph. 

Felix  came  back  with  effort  to  earth. 
"They  ?  Oh,  yes !  I  put  it  through  for  them, 
without  at  all  involving  you.  Such  a  queer 
double  wedding,  in  the  City  Hall.  Miss  Tone 
and  Webber,  Tommy  and  Angela.  Yet,"  he 
grew  reverential,  "it  was  beautiful.  There 
was  feeling.  You  should  have  seen  Angela!" 
There  were  tears  in  his  eyes.  "She  was  so 
quiet,  so  wordless,  so  blissful.  She  simply  laid 
her  hand  in  his,  forever,  without  a  question, 
without  a  regret." 

"Felix!"  Adelaide  could  not  keep  back  a 
reproach.  "It  is  my  own  family!  I  don't 
think  you  have  a  right  ...  !" 

"Where  are  my  gloves?"  he  suddenly  broke 
in.  He  was  rolling  up  his  manuscript  with 
nervous  haste. 


164       The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

"But  aren't  you  going  to  read  me  ...  ?" 
For  once  Adelaide  wished  to  waive  her  point. 
His  manner  fairly  scared  her. 

"No!"  His  words  came  like  blocks  of  ice. 
"I  am  not  going  to  read  to  you.  I'm  going 
off  for  .  .  ." 

"But  where,  Felix?  You've  only  just  come 
back!  What  for?" 

"I  don't  exactly  know,  not  for  certain."  He 
had  found  his  gloves,  thrust  the  manuscript  in 
a  table  drawer,  and  was  frowning  consider- 
ingly at  her.  "I  don't  know  where,  or  what 
for,  but  I  think,  to  get  drunk,  my  child.  Yes, 
drunk,  quite  comfortably  drunk!" 


CHAPTER  XI 
©n  tbe  IRoaD 

WHATEVER  Felix's  ultimate  design, 
his  first  act  was  peaceably  to  stand  on 
the  high-columned  veranda,  staring  down 
over  the  sloping  lawn  at  the  river  still  swollen 
from  spring  rains.  It  was  full  tide  of  early 
June.  Maple  and  horse-chestnut  leaves  had 
attained  the  size,  if  not  the  denseness,  of  sum- 
mer. A  few  precocious  young  robins  were  al- 
ready learning  the  art  of  catching  earthworms 
from  fat  and  anxious  parents.  The  horizontal 
cloud  of  dogwood  blossoms  showed  ivory- 
white  against  blue-green,  opaque  cedars,  this 
austerity  of  contrast  being  again  broken  by  the 
intense,  unnatural  pink  of  Judas  trees.  From 
every  side  came  the  warmth  and  tenderness  of 
spring  melting  into  summer.  The  air  fairly 
hummed  with  new-born  insect  voices;  bees 
165 


1 66       The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

gorged  at  the  clusters  of  an  ancient  wistaria, 
then  fell,  inert  and  drugged,  upon  the  grass. 
A  tiny  wren,  perched  aloft,  sang  with  an  utter 
passion  and  abandonment.  Felix  watched  the 
little  brown  body,  instinct  with  joy  and  life. 
At  a  faint  twitter  from  the  nearest  bough,  the 
bird  was  off  to  its  mate,  with  a  soft  note 
of  answer.  With  a  smile,  he  thought  of 
Angela. 

Round  the  corner  of  the  porch  came  a  new 
servant,  Pitcairn,  his  chauffeur,  a  monoma- 
niac, loving  gear  and  bearings  as  a  tenor  loves 
his  voice.  The  man  touched  his  cap.  "Coin' 
for  a  turn,  to-day,  sir?" 

Felix  brightened  at  this  prospect  of  escape. 
"How  fast  can  I  put  it  on  these  country 
roads?" 

"Coin'  alone,  sir?"     Pitcairn  disapproved. 

Felix,  however,  felt  the  holiday  would  lack 
freedom,  with  this  highly  specialised  being  at 
his  side.  He  had  no  definite  plan  of  action,  but 
to  be  handicapped  by  this  alien  presence  took 
all  zest  from  his  spirit  of  adventure.  After 


On  the  Road  167 

uttering   many   admonitions,    Pitcairn    finally 
saw  him  vanish  down  the  avenue. 

A  level,  sandy  road  ran  for  a  few  miles  by 
a  disused  canal,  a  sluggish  stream  gliding  be- 
tween banks  of  short  thick  grass.  Here  and 
there,  rickety  bridges  crossed  the  deserted 
waterway.  In  broad,  level  fields,  harrowing 
was  going  forward  between  low  rows  of  wide- 
leaved  corn.  Grain  not  yet  in  head  stood  just 
tall  enough  to  sway  in  gentle  breezes  drenched 
with  the  rank  sweetness  of  tasselling  chestnut 
blooms.  The  motor  whisked  easily  past  field 
after  field;  now  the  aspect  of  the  country 
changed  a  little,  growing  sandier,  less  culti- 
vated. Now  the  road  forded  an  enchanting 
creek,  brown  and  limpid,  winding  back  into 
depths  of  wood  where  leaves  still  showed  im- 
mature in  size  and  texture.  Unenclosed  com- 
mon land  next  became  frequent,  and  patches 
of  woodland  edged  with  long,  soft  grass. 
Wild  pink  azalea  and  late  crowfoot  violets  of 
heavenly  azure  grew  in  deep  cushiony  beds  of 
dark-green  moss.  Here  and  there  an  over- 


1 68       The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

grown  cart-track,  branching  from  the  road 
with  a  hint  of  vague  habitations  in  the  remoter 
forest,  made  Felix  regret  the  cumbrous  motor. 
These  bridle  paths  called  for  a  horse.  As  this 
passed  through  his  mind,  a  turn  in  the  road 
showed  at  some  distance  two  loose  animals, 
cropping  juicy  wayside  tufts.  Slackening  his 
pace  to  avoid  a  stampede,  he  also  saw  two  very 
small  boys  emerge  from  a  thicket  beyond,  and 
with  a  queer  cry  saunter  towards  what  he  now 
knew  to  be  a  wild-eyed  mare,  and  a  knowing, 
elderly  pony.  Instead  of  flicking  up  disobedi- 
ent heels  and  evading  capture,  the  beasts 
meekly  put  down  their  heads,  and  allowed 
themselves  to  be  led  by  a  casual  grip  of  the 
forelock.  Overtaking  the  group,  Felix  with 
interest  inspected  the  captors,  olive-hued 
urchins,  ready  of  speech,  with  the  manner  of 
people  well  used  to  strangers. 

"Buy  a  nice  horse,  gentleman?  Sell  him 
cheap.  Fifteen  hand,  only  seven  year  old." 
Straining  on  tiptoe,  the  child  seemed  to  whis- 
per in  the  old  pony's  ear.  Straightway  the 


On  the  Road  169 

ancient  creature  assumed  a  more  spirited  car- 
riage of  head  and  tail. 

"No  use  for  horses."  Felix  smiled  pleas- 
antly. "Beside,  what  of  that  splint?" 

"That  is  no  splint,  a  bee  stung  him  there. 
But  for  speed,  this  mare  here  ..." 

Felix  shook  his  head. 

"Well,  you  want  your  fortune  told."  The 
boy  was  amiably  persistent.  "There's  a  lady, 
just  beyond  these  bushes,  not  a  hundred  yard 
away.  She  reads  the  future,  gives  you  luck, 
tells  the  name  of  the  one  you  love  best." 

Tossing  him  a  coin,  Felix  moved  the  lever 
and  sped  past  the  clump  of  bushes,  where  a 
very  red-eyed  crone  with  knee-joints  of  amaz- 
ing flexibility,  crouched  at  the  brink  of  a  low 
bank  bordering  the  road.  A  bright  fire  was 
burning  under  a  heavy  iron  pot.  Several  dark, 
round-topped  tents  had  been  set  up  under  the 
trees.  Two  smartly  painted  and  handsome 
wagons  with  upturned,  empty  shafts  stood  be- 
yond. Hobbled  horses  nibbled  at  young  oak 
leaves  or  pungent  bark  of  spicewood  bushes. 


170       The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

An  incredibly  ragged  negro  lay  at  full  length 
asleep.  There  was  a  mild  stir  of  women, 
children,  babies,  and  distrustful  dogs.  As  the 
motor  approached,  these  came  forward  bark- 
ing, with  eager  curiosity,  to  be  waved  back  by 
the  crone.  "If  he  stops,  he's  mine.  Don't  for- 
get that,  Britannia  Williams,"  she  muttered 
authoritatively.  But  the  car  passed  without 
slacking,  and  old  Mrs.  Lovel  made  uncompli- 
mentary observations  on  the  spiritless  ways  of 
modern  gentry  who  took  no  interest  in  for- 
tune-telling. "If  that  Nina's  pretty  face  had 
been  out,  we'd  have  had  a  different  story,"  she 
grumbled.  "That  girl  must  not  hide  away 
when  any  one  comes  in  sight." 

At  this  minute  a  strange  sound  brought  her 
to  her  feet.  Without  visible  cause,  the  vanish- 
ing car  came  to  a  sudden  stop.  WTith  a  jerk  it 
reared  and  turned  completely  over,  tossing 
Felix  quite  free  of  itself,  but  with  such  force 
that  he  lay  motionless  in  the  sandy  road. 

Women  and  children  made  towards  him.  A 
man  in  slouch  hat  and  velveteen  breeches 


On  the  Road  171 

emerged  sleepily  from  one  of  the  tents,  and 
out  of  the  wood  hurried  a  girl  whose  clean 
bodice  and  trim  petticoats  marked  her  as 
slightly  superior  to  the  untidy  mothers  and 
cooks  about  the  fire. 

"Is  he  dead,  Nina?"  the  man  asked,  as  she 
bent  over  Felix,  trying  to  find  his  pulse. 

"I  don't  know."  Under  her  gipsy's  tan,  the 
girl  turned  pale  at  the  sight  of  the  young  man's 
lifeless  face. 

Old  Mrs.  Lovel  put  an  unclean  and  wrinkled 
hand  over  his  mouth,  felt  his  limbs. 

Slowly  the  dark-blue  eyes  opened,  he  looked 
about  at  the  assembled  party. 

"Where  are  you  hurted,  my  pretty  gentle- 
man?" old  Mrs.  Lovel  asked. 

"Why,"  he  drew  a  long  breath,  "nowhere, 
thank  you.  Only  winded,  I  think."  He 
stretched  and  tried  himself.  "But  I  can't  re- 
member coming  here." 

"Give  the  sick  gentleman  your  hand,  Nina," 
the  mistress  of  ceremonies  decreed,  "and  help 
him  to  a  seat.  When  he's  rested  we'll  get  him 


172       The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

a  nice  horse  and  wagon,  so  we  will,  to  take  him 
where  he  came  from." 

Feeling  weak  and  shaken,  Felix  acquiesced 
in  this  arrangement,  and  more  gipsy  men, 
springing  apparently  out  of  the  ground,  pro- 
ceeded with  much  labour  to  drag  his  over- 
turned car  to  the  shelter  of  some  dense  bushes. 
When  they  reached  the  camp,  to  his  disgust, 
Felix  again  felt  so  dizzy  that  he  thankfully 
postponed  starting  on  a  twenty-mile  drive  till 
after  supper,  the  only  vehicle  capable  of  making 
that  journey  under  a  day's  time  being  a  dis- 
integrating sulky  in  which  he  could  not  possi- 
bly at  present  maintain  his  balance.  Although 
still  light,  it  was  already  past  six  o'clock. 
Warm  evening  scents  rose  from  the  sun- 
cheered  earth,  and  pleasant  whiffs  of  forest 
dampness  stole  from  out  the  darkening  wood. 

After  a  queer  but  palatable  meal,  Felix 
found  himself  dropping  with  sleep.  Why  not 
stay  all  night?  Mr.  Williams,  the  master,  of- 
fered ready  hospitality.  The  gipsy  wagons 
with  their  clean  linen  and  thick,  abundant  pil- 


On  the  Road  173 

lows  tempted  his  weariness.  It  was  long  since 
he  had  slept,  night  after  night  of  wakefulness 
lay  behind  him.  In  a  perfect  luxury  of  fa- 
tigue, he  submitted  to  being  almost  lifted  into 
bed,  and  dozed,  listening  to  voices,  to  the 
chirrup  of  night  insects,  to  the  crackling  fire. 
Then  came  the  stamp  of  a  picketed  horse,  a 
wrangle  among  the  dogs  .  .  .  old  Mrs.  Lovel 
crooning  a  minor,  rhythmic  monotone;  the 
occasional  shriek  of  nesting  birds  disturbed 
by  owls.  When  he  next  opened  his  eyes,  it 
was  bright  morning,  with  the  sun  high  over- 
head, and  a  general  sense  of  the  business  of 
life  being  well  under  way.  Climbing  down 
from  the  wagon,  he  found  himself  rested, 
hungry,  and  greatly  desiring  a  bath. 

"Back  by  that  footpath  you'll  find  water,  a 
fine  spring."  Old  Mrs.  Lovel  actually  pro- 
vided a  towel,  adding,  "They  are  all  gone  to  a 
fair  but  Nina.  She'll  get  you  a  bite." 

"But,"  he  remonstrated,  "surely,  there  is 
some  one  to  drive  me  home?" 

The  old  woman's  face  assumed  a  look  of 


174       The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

baffling  vagueness.  "Dear  gentleman,  you 
will  be  better  for  waiting  an  hour  or  so,  and 
they  will  be  back  by  then.  I'll  keep 
watch  .  .  ."  She  fairly  hurried  him  off  to  his 
ablutions. 

Following  the  path,  he  shortly  came  upon  a 
clear  spring  bubbling  from  between  the  pro- 
jecting roots  of  a  great  willow,  into  a  natural, 
moss-bound  basin.  At  his  approach  a  frog 
dropped  like  a  stone  into  the  little  pool,  and  a 
small  bird  scurried  away  afoot,  running  under 
leaves  and  grasses  to  deeper  cover.  By  the 
spring  sat  Nina,  apparently  absorbed  in 
watching  the  water  fall  into  a  large,  clean  pail. 
At  a  glance  he  saw  that  she  was  not  only  pic- 
turesque but  pretty.  The  thick  shoes  and 
clumsy  stockings  hardly  spoilt  her  small  feet 
and  slender  ankles,  the  sunburnt  hands  were 
unroughened  by  work,  and  her  attitude  showed 
a  grace  quite  unlike  the  movements  of  the 
other  toil-worn  women  of  the  camp.  Al- 
though a  nut-brown  maid,  her  features  were 
less  aquiline  than  most  of  the  gipsies'.  A  little 


On  the  Road  175 

more,  and  her  nose  would  have  turned  up 
frankly,  over  the  wide,  red-lipped  mouth,  with 
its  straight,  white  teeth.  Irregular!  That 
was  her  characteristic  as  to  feature,  but  with 
a  beautiful  compactness  of  shape  in  head, 
brow,  close  little  ear,  and  round,  uncovered 
throat. 

"Have  you  any  soap  in  your  pocket,  Nina?" 
he  began.  The  girl  looked  needlessly  cross. 
"Britannia  Williams  keeps  them  things!"  She 
shrugged  her  shoulders  conclusively. 

"Well,  never  mind!"  He  knelt  by  the 
spring,  unfastening  his  necktie.  Nina  reached 
for  her  heavy  pail,  lifted  it  with  effort,  and 
turned  towards  the  camp. 

In  a  second  he  sprang  to  help  her. 

"It's  too  full;"  deliberately  she  poured 
half  its  contents  on  the  ground.  "I  need  no 
help." 

"See,  Nina !  Such  a  lot  of  water  as  you've 
wasted.  What  is  wrong?"  Felix  seldom 
coaxed  in  vain. 

"I  want  no  fine  gentleman  keeping  me  to  get 


Ij6       The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

breakfast  while  others  is  off  fairing,"  her  voice 
was  sullen. 

"I'll  hurry  out  of  your  way,"  Felix  prom- 
ised, and  hastened  to  plunge  his  face  into  the 
icy  spring  water.  Returning  to  the  camp,  he 
found  Nina  alone,  old  Mrs.  Lovel  having  mys- 
teriously disappeared.  Here  a  difficulty  arose. 
It  was  not  too  far  for  him  to  walk  to  the  near- 
est farm,  but  he  owed  the  gipsies  for  food  and 
lodging,  and  how  should  he  trust  payment  to 
this  morose,  half-savage  girl?  The  deserted 
camp  seemed  much  more  his  home  than  Chas- 
tellux;  he  had  no  earthly  wish  to  leave. 
Towns,  wives,  French  actresses,  and  work 
seemed  equally  repugnant.  He  would  soften 
Nina's  temper  with  gold,  and  urge  her  to  be  off 
and  leave  him  in  full  possession. 

She  silently  brought  him  bread,  salt,  and 
eggs,  also  hot  coffee  from  a  battered  pewter 
pot.  Presently  she  began  to  carry  fresh  wood 
for  the  fire.  This  he  could  not  allow. 

"Nina,"  he  called,  "come  here  and  rest. 
There  is  something  I  have  to  say  to  you."  He 


On  the  Road  177 

had  suddenly  remembered  that  she  was  a  for- 
tune-teller by  birth  and  training.  Stupid  for 
him  not  to  ask  her.  That  accounted  for  much 
unapproachableness.  Taking  her  hand  in  his, 
he  slowly  crossed  the  palm  with  a  crisp  bank- 
note. The  girl's  face  lost  none  of  its  impene- 
trable reserve,  but  flushing  slightly,  she  thrust 
the  money  in  her  bosom  and  bent  over  his 
hand. 

"You  don't  work,  do  you  understand?"  she 
intoned  in  a  queer  cadenced  sing-song.  "You 
live  in  a  fine  house  with  a  lovely  lady.  Do  you 
hear  what  I  say?  Much  has  come  to  you;  but 
there's  more  to  come,  and  more.  Do  you  un- 
derstand?" 

"What's  my  trade?"  Felix  had  no  wish  for 
domestic  prophecies. 

"You — you  write!"  She  stole  a  sidelong 
glance  at  his  face. 

"Write?  How?"  he  put  in  to  puzzle 
her. 

Quickly  she  drew  in  sail.  "Oh,  I  mean  you 
don't  work  with  your  hands,"  sniffing  at  him 


178       The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

with  her  pretty,  upturned  nose.  "A  doctor !  I 
smell  your  stuff !" 

In  turn  Felix  gave  her  a  quick  glance. 
"You're  a  witch.  Please  don't  go  on,  that's 
quite  enough.  I'm  afraid  to  hear  another 
word.  But,"  he  smiled  mischievously,  "won't 
you  give  me  a  chance  at  yours?"  With  no 
great  willingness,  she  let  him  take  her  hand, 
and  scrutinise  it.  "You've  rather  a  temper, 
I'm  afraid,  Nina.  And  lazy,  yes,  you're  lazy. 
You  only  pretend  to  work  when  people  are 
looking.  See  how  soft  that  is — and  that!" 
With  investigating  finger  tips  he  touched  her 
defenceless  palm.  "Isn't  that  true?" 

"You're  telling  me!"  The  girl's  hoarse 
voice  showed  no  relenting. 

He  drew  his  nail  slowly  and  lightly  down 
her  life  line.  "Old  Mrs.  Lovel  thinks  you 
pretty  enough  to  stay  alone,  to  amuse  strange 
visitors,  and  you  can't  reconcile  your  con- 
science to  marching  off  and  leaving  the  place 
unguarded,  though  you  very  much  wish  she 
hadn't  left  you  without  a  chaperon !" 


On  the  Road  179 

A  quiver  went  through  the  hand,  as  if  she 
checked  a  motion  to  withdraw  it. 

"Quite  right  to  trust  me,  though,"  he  went 
on  imperturbably.  "I  wouldn't  annoy  you  for 
the  world,  because — because  I  suspect  you're 
so  fond  of  Maeterlinck." 

This  time  she  really  started,  uncontrollably. 

"I  thought  as  much!  And  how  do  I  know 
it?"  He  had  released  her  hand.  "By  your 
smelling  of  orris.  Now,  young  lady,  please 
tell  me  how  you  came  here?" 

The  girl  had  stepped  back  from  him,  and 
stood  considering.  "It  would  be  a  very  great 
favour,  if  you  would  say  where  I  fall  short, 
how  you  really  guessed."  She  spoke  very 
seriously.  "It  is  important  for  me  to  know." 
Her  natural  voice  now  showed  delicately  clear, 
with  a  lovely  purity  of  enunciation,  and  low, 
vibrating  undertones.  The  voice  of  finished 
civilisation. 

"Rather  hard  to  say,  exactly."  He  gravely 
thought  it  over.  "The  eyes,  I  think.  Gipsies 
have  a  look  of  their  own,  the  most  cocknified 


180       The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

English  gipsy  hanging  about  a  county  fair. 
The  black  fills  the  white,  the  under  lids  curve 
upwards,  but  it's  more  expression,  a  touch  of 
Asiatic  mystery,  something  baffling.  And 
above  all,  they  have  an  unquenchable  air  of 
race." 

"Anything  else?"  she  urged. 

"Yes,  there's  more.  Whatever  your  trade 
may  be,  you  use  your  mind.  Your  eye  shows 
that.  It  is  sophisticated,  I  don't  mean  unsuita- 
bly, but  as  befits  ..." 

"A  reader  of  Maeterlinck,"  she  relieved 
him. 

"Softened  by  orris,"  he  amended. 

"I'm  sorry  you  found  me  out,"  she  presently 
observed. 

"I  should  have  pretended  to  be  taken  in,  I 
see  that  now.  It  would  have  been  politer. 
But  the  news  goes  no  farther,"  he  reassured 
her.  "It  was  not  quite  tactful,  but  then  you 
had  been  keeping  me  at  such  a  disadvantage." 

"It  is  not  that,"  she  explained.  "You  think 
it  is  some  freak,  my  being  here.  I  wish  it 


On  the  Road  181 

were.  My  name  is  Nina  Braeme,  at  your  ser- 
vice, second  lady  of  the  Globe  Square  Com- 
pany. I've  been  playing  little  more  than  walk- 
ing parts,  nothing  worth  while,  these  four 
years.  This  time  they  are  giving  me  a  chance, 
the  gipsy  in  a  play  that  comes  out  in  the 
autumn.  I  must  make  a  hit,  it's  absolutely 
necessary.  I  have  to."  She  drew  a  long 
anxious  breath. 

"I  see."     He  nodded  sympathetically. 

"If  any  one  fancies  it's  pleasant,"  she  went 
on  with  a  sense  of  relief.  "I'm  frightened  all 
the  time.  Nothing  happens,  but  anything 
might.  They  are  kind  enough,  but  they  keep 
me  uneasy.  At  all  events  I've  only  a  week 
longer  to  stay,  but  if  you  saw  through  me,  so, 
I  still  have  a  lot  to  learn." 

"I  think  you  are  quite  safe  for  the  theatre," 
he  assured  her.  "To  begin  with,  there  won't 
be  the  real  thing  to  measure  you  by." 

"Are  you  incognito,  too,  Mr.  Gwynne?" 
she  suddenly  asked. 

This  time  it  was  Felix  who  showed  a  lively 


1 82       The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

red.  "Those  beastly  magazine  pictures,"  he 
lamented. 

"It  wouldn't  really  matter  much,  if  I  did  be- 
tray you  to  our  hosts,  would  it?"  she  asked 
with  a  pleasant  gleam  of  mischief.  "Their  in- 
terest in  literature  is  not  of  the  keenest." 

"By  the  way,"  Felix  remembered,  "shouldn't 
you  be  following  them  to  the  fair,  now  that 
you  know  I'm  to  be  trusted?" 

But  Nina  had  doubts  of  her  company  being 
wanted.  She  even  doubted  the  fact  of  a  fair 
at  this  busy  season,  when  the  whole  country- 
side spoke  of  labour.  "They  have  something 
on  hand,  I  think."  She  believed  them  glad  of 
an  excuse  to  leave  her. 

"Then  rehearse  your  part."  Felix  threw 
himself  on  the  grass  at  the  foot  of  a  spreading 
oak,  prepared  to  take  life  as  it  came,  with  un- 
questioning content. 

Nina  vanished  in  the  bushes,  presently  to 
appear,  slowly  searching,  then  arranging 
sticks  and  stones,  a  gipsy  patteran,  and  utter- 
ing a  conventional  soliloquy  about  a  faithless 


On  the  Road  183 

lover,  a  light-haired  lady.  The  lines,  banal 
and  wholly  artificial,  were  in  a  measure  re- 
deemed by  her  close  study  of  gipsy  inflexions, 
till  the  ordinary  part  in  her  hands  became  suf- 
ficiently striking  to  promise  well  for  "The  Ro- 
many Rawnie's"  future.  As  for  the  girl's 
actual  talent,  he  judged  her  a  promising  stu- 
dent, with  spurs  still  unwon,  and  with  an  in- 
telligence greatly  aided  by  inborn  charm  of 
face  and  person. 

Presently  she  stopped.  "I've  a  proposition 
to  make,  unless  you  are  in  a  hurry  ?" 

"Hurry!  My  time  is  yours,  if  you  permit 
me  to  stay,  but  perhaps  I'm  a  nuisance,  yet  it's 
lonely  here." 

"Yes,"  she  agreed,  "it  is  lonely,  and  I  want 
a  holiday.  I  want  to  speak  to  a  person  who 
understands.  At  a  pinch,  I  might  even  make 
shift  to  listen  a  little,  if  you  want  to  talk,  Mr. 
Gwynne." 

"It  is  almost  too  good,"  said  Felix  seriously, 
"for  two  people  on  pleasure  bent  to  meet  by  a 
gpring,  at  the  edge  of  a  wood,  in  June." 


1 84       The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

Nina  interrupted.  "Couldn't  we  arrange, 
just  for  the  day,  to  picnic,  here  in  camp?  I'm 
only  myself,  but  you  must  play  my  brother, 
Rupert.  That  simplifies  so  much."  For  a 
minute  her  face  clouded,  but  she  went  on  with 
an  air  of  companionable  gaiety,  "You  see  how 
that  adjusts  our  relations  at  once?  Rupert 
would  be  horrified  if  he  knew  of  my  being 
here.  He's  at  a  very  stately  age,  just  twenty." 
From  the  neck  of  her  bodice  she  pulled  out  a 
locket  and  held  towards  him  the  picture  of  a 
youth.  The  more  Felix  looked,  the  less  he 
liked  the  appearance  of  Mr.  Rupert  Braeme. 
Handsome,  yes,  but  nervous,  weak,  and  filled 
with  that  conceit  which  runs  to  inconvenient 
sensibilities.  Still,  in  the  story  Nina  now  un- 
folded, Rupert  seemed  rather  luckless  than 
guilty.  The  two  were  orphans,  their  father, 
an  illustrator  of  some  standing,  had  been  un- 
able to  do  more  than  provide  for  them  during 
his  life.  His  early  death  left  them  without 
other  resource  than  a  small  sum  of  insurance 
money.  This  Nina  spent  outright  in  educating 


On  the  Road  185 

herself  and  the  boy,  he  following  his  father's 
footsteps,  she  drifting  to  the  theatre.  Though 
not  laying  by  riches,  the  pair  were  making  out 
sufficiently  well,  when  Rupert  had  been  struck 
with  sudden  illness.  An  operation,  a  slow  con- 
valescence had  drained  their  last  cent.  A 
necessary  period  of  recuperation,  by  the  sea, 
had  only  been  possible  by  borrowing  a  round 
sum.  Mr.  Quorn,  Nina's  manager,  supplied 
this,  and  was  also  more  than  kind  in  allowing 
her,  if  she  could  find  means  to  do  so,  to  force  a 
minor  part.  Success  meant  further  advance- 
ment, paying  off  of  debts,  and  a  chance  of  put- 
ting Rupert  back  into  the  current  of  life,  able 
to  work  and  hold  his  own. 

Having  run  over  this  with  small  detail,  Nina 
was  ready  to  meet  the  day  in  a  true  spirit  of 
lazy,  irresponsible  enjoyment.  Experience  of 
what  may  befall  a  pretty  girl  alone  in  streets 
and  theatres  had  given  her  a  full  share  of  wari- 
ness, but  Felix's  manner  soon  made  her  feel 
that  here  indeed  was  a  playfellow  whom  she 
could  trust  without  reserve.  There  seemed  a 


1 86       The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

great  deal  to  do  about  the  camp.  At  her  sug- 
gestion they  made  a  bonfire  of  unsightly  debris, 
gathered  bunches  of  wild  geraniums  and  feath- 
ery snakeroot  to  decorate  a  circle  of  moss  set 
apart  for  their  dining  table.  They  freed  a 
little  pool  from  last  year's  twigs  and  leaves, 
clearing  the  channel  beyond,  till  a  crystal  rivu- 
let vanished,  swift  and  clear,  in  impenetrable 
tangles  of  fragrant  marsh  azalea.  An  earnest 
debate  as  to  the  feelings  of  two  crayfish,  dis- 
turbed in  the  process  of  moving  a  log  from  the 
stream,  led  to  Nina's  finally  acknowledging 
that  it  might  perhaps  be  worth  a  moment's  an- 
guish, to  know  the  joys  of  again  finding  your 
element.  On  Felix's  gravely  assuring  her  that 
he  knew  this  to  be  the  case,  having  himself 
lately  tried  it,  she  agreed  that  two  helpless 
crustaceans  should  be  carried  a  full  yard  from 
their  brook,  waving  their  small  angry  claws  in 
vain  efforts  to  nip  Felix's  cautious  fingers.  A 
course  was  cleared,  the  starting  line  marked 
with  twigs,  and  having  named  the  competi- 
tors, Felix  started  them,  face  to  the  water. 


On  the  Road  187 

For  a  moment  they  wavered,  turned  about,  be- 
wildered, then  suddenly,  with  one  impulse, 
made  clumsy  haste  for  the  stream,  plunging 
simultaneously  to  the  bottom,  and  disappear- 
ing in  a  little  cloud  of  disturbed  sand. 

"Rather  hateful  of  us,"  Nina  regretted. 
"I  don't  believe  they  appreciated  it  after 
all." 

"No,  you  are  wrong."  He  was  certain. 
"They  now  have  something  to  talk  of  till  they 
die.  If  they  enjoy  agreeing,  they  can  just  sit 
under  a  stone,  and  say  'Did  you  ever !'  to  each 
other,  one  million  times.  That  is  what  my 
father  and  mother-in-law  call  exchanging 
ideas.  If  they  really  like  disputing  .  .  ." 
Suddenly  he  lost  zest.  Married  people's  dis- 
putes were  not  amusing.  And  this  turned  his 
thoughts  to  the  future.  He  would  arrange 
with  the  gipsies  to  stay  here  till  Nina's  week 
was  up.  The  girl  needed  protection.  He 
craved  rest  and  open  air.  He  could  send  to 
some  village  store  for  coarse,  clean  clothes. 
He  laid  this  before  Nina;  did  she  object? 


1 88       The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

Nina  had  frankly  owned  to  the  comfort  of  his 
presence,  when  their  attention  was  diverted  by 
the  gipsies  appearing  in  a  body,  at  the  turn  of 
the  road. 


CHAPTER  XII 
Gbe  Zeal  of  pttcafrn 

THREE  girls  with  a  baby  sat  in  the  one- 
seated  sulky.  They  wore  huge  flaunt- 
ing hats,  smart  ready-made  town  clothes  of  the 
cheapest  kind,  but  bright-coloured.  Lying  on 
his  stomach  across  the  back  of  a  lean  nag,  the 
ragged  negro,  apparently  asleep,  still  smoked 
his  cigarette  end. 

"Do  you  realise  that  Sam  is  their  servant?" 
Nina  whispered.  "Slave,  for  all  I  know.  At 
our  last  stop,  old  Mrs.  Lovel  made  a  wretched 
darky  family  bake  and  drudge  for  her,  for 
three  whole  days.  Threatened  to  put  a  spell  on 
them  if  they  refused." 

"Nice  old  lady!"  Felix  was  full  of  appre- 
ciation. 

One  large  wagon  overflowing  with  women 
and  children  followed  the  sulky.  Then  came  a 
189 


190       The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

mob  of  horses  on  which  the  men  seemed  to  be 
lolling  at  ease,  indifferently  sitting  astride, 
lounging  on  withers  or  crupper.  Boys  scam- 
pered alongside. 

"But  there's  another  wagon,  a  fine  new 
one,"  Nina's  quick  eye  detected.  "That's  not 
one  of  ours,  they  must  be  having  friends  to 
dine.  And  there  is  still  another,  but  like  an 
ordinary  farm  wagon." 

The  cavalcade  slowly  approached,  and  dur- 
ing the  excitement  of  unharnessing,  Felix 
managed  to  engage  a  week's  board  of  Mr. 
Williams,  with  difficulty  thwarting  a  desire  to 
kick  his  host,  as  the  furtive  black  eyes  gave 
a  significant  look  towards  Nina.  The  new 
wagon  evidently  belonged  to  a  highly  impor- 
tant lady,  Mrs.  Costello,  a  hawk-faced  woman 
of  middle  age,  with  tight  ebony  braids,  and 
many  curiously  wrought  rings  of  heavy  red 
gold  on  her  small  dry  hands.  Her  restless 
glances  and  air  of  depression  gave  Felix  an 
idea  of  some  impending  complication.  After 
supper  had  been  eaten  in  silence,  the  fire  was 


The  Zeal  of  Pitcairn  191 

extinguished,  and  a  strong  hint  thrown  out 
that  guests  and  boarders  would  do  well  to  turn 
in  early.  Felix's  wish  to  sleep  in  the  open  met 
with  such  forceful  opposition  that,  being  guar- 
anteed a  bed  to  himself,  he  climbed  into  one 
of  the  large  wagons  and  was  soon  fast 
asleep. 

After  the  first  hours  of  unbroken  slumber, 
he  grew  vaguely  aware  of  dreams,  of  whizzing 
through  space  in  the  motor — then  flying  across 
the  continent  on  a  vestibule  train — then  toss- 
ing in  a  storm  at  sea.  One  huge  wave,  threat- 
ening to  swamp  the  vessel,  shook  him  out  of 
his  dream  into  a  wakeful  consciousness  of  real 
motion.  Looking  through  the  bed  curtains,  he 
saw  the  whole  procession  strung  out  along  the 
highroad,  sleeping-wagons,  the  sulky  piled 
with  tent  poles,  led  horses,  dogs  plodding  be- 
tween front  wheels,  one  long-legged  foal  trot- 
ting stiffly  at  the  side  of  its  dam.  The  first 
grey  of  early  dawn,  strangely  like  winter  twi- 
light, was  creeping  over  the  sky,  leaving  the 
earth  still  dark  and  hidden.  The  marvellous 


192       The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

first  bird  sounded  its  note,  and  straightway 
trees  and  roadside  grew  alive  with  tentative 
chirps  and  murmurings.  Now  he  could  dis- 
tinguish cattle  asleep  in  the  broad  fields. 
Light,  without  colour,  dyed  all  objects  an  in- 
discriminate brownish  hue.  A  man  strolled 
forward,  perched  on  the  tail-board  of  Felix's 
ambulant  bed-chamber. 

"Where  are  we  off  to?"  Felix  asked. 

"Just  moving,"  came  the  guarded  answer. 
"Too  hot  for  travelling  by  day." 

"But  where?"  Felix  indiscreetly  persisted. 

"Oh,  you  know  the  place.  Up  the  big  hill 
and  over.  Across  water,  by  the  edge  of  the 
great  wood,  only  a  half-day's  journey." 

This  Delphic  mode  of  reply  gratified  so 
much  more  in  Felix  than  a  mere  vulgar  wish  to 
know  where  they  might  be  going,  that  he 
questioned  no  further,  but  lay  gazing  out  at 
the  ever  new  sight  of  light  and  life  coming 
back  to  a  sleeping  world.  Little  white  clouds, 
flecking  the  horizon,  hid  the  sun,  but  long  rays, 
escaping  here  and  there,  touched  treetops  and 


The  Zeal  of  Pitcairn  193 

warmed  twittering  birds  into  an  ecstasy  of 
song.  Across  the  level  country  the  sound  of 
distant  factory  whistles  broke  the  sense  of  rural 
seclusion.  At  a  cross-road,  the  gipsies  col- 
lected and  held  council.  Finally  Mr.  Williams 
detached  himself  from  the  group  and  slouched 
towards  Felix,  with  his  flexible,  unhurried 
gait.  There  was  a  proposition.  Mrs.  Costello 
found  herself  in  the  throes  of  a  toothache  so 
violent  that  a  dentist  alone  could  relieve  her 
misery.  The  Williams  and  Lovel  horses, 
being  heavy-laden,  must  not  be  urged  to  a  pace 
quite  possible  for  her  strong  ponies  in  the 
black  farm  wagon.  Would  the  gentleman  go 
ahead  and  drive  her?  She  could  be  quite  at 
ease  and  direct  a  course  from  a  mattress  in  the 
back.  They  would  follow  at  leisure.  Nina 
too  should  be  of  the  party  to  bear  him  com- 
pany, as  Mrs.  Costello's  agony  rendered  her 
unfit  for  speech. 

After  a  hasty  breakfast  of  bread  and  cheese 
Felix  started  out  in  the  role  of  Mrs.  Costello's 
coachman,  all  the  more  pleased  as  this  turn  of 


194       The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

affairs  would  give  him  a  speedy  chance  for 
shopping.  Whatever  comfort  he  might  be  sup- 
posed to  derive  from  Nina  was  much  impaired 
by  the  fact  that  the  invalid  tossed  and  moaned 
in  such  evident  pain,  that  common  humanity 
forced  the  girl  to  leave  her  place  at  his  side 
and  crouch  on  the  mattress,  with  Mrs.  Cos- 
tello's  aching  head  on  her  lap.  The  long, 
straight  road  was  at  first  rutty  and  deep  with 
sand.  Gradually  they  came  upon  the  bony 
framework  of  a  neglected  turnpike,  and  later, 
occasional  farmhouses  gave  way  to  ugly  clap- 
board cottages,  bright  with  ochre  and  pea- 
green  paint.  Now  they  drove  beside  the  grass- 
grown  track  of  a  suburban  trolley.  Before 
long,  the  white  arms  of  a  gate  stopped  them  at 
a  railway  crossing.  A  little  squalid  station,  a 
handful  of  loafers  lounging  among  empty  milk 
cans  and  freight  boxes.  The  town  itself  was 
almost  deserted,  tall  factory  chimneys  explain- 
ing the  absence  of  human  life  from  the  wide, 
raw-looking  streets. 

Here    Mrs.    Costello    roused    herself    suffi- 


The  Zeal  of  Pitcairn  195 

ciently  to  ask  the  hour.  On  learning  that  it 
was  after  nine  o'clock,  she  burrowed  mysteri- 
ously in  the  bosom  of  her  dress,  and  to  Felix's 
complete  amazement  pulled  out  a  dog-eared 
bankbook  and  small,  dirty  leather  bag.  As- 
suring him  that  her  ponies  would  stand,  she 
made  Felix  come  back  into  the  wagon  and 
count  endless  gold  pieces,  double  eagles  to  the 
sum  of  a  hundred,  five  hundred,  fifteen  hundred 
dollars!  Then,  with  much  briskness,  pointing 
to  the  bank  building,  she  produced  a  filled-in 
slip,  and  begged  him  to  spare  a  sick  woman  the 
trouble  of  making  her  own  deposit.  The  slip 
read  all  in  order,  "To  the  account  of  Rhoda 
Costello."  Without  question,  Felix  obeyed  her 
behest,  merely  suggesting  that  she  meanwhile 
hunt  up  a  dentist.  This  she  met  with  demur. 
Her  own  dentist,  he  who  pulled  her  last  tooth, 
lived  farther  on,  down  the  road.  By  dinner 
time  they  would  find  him. 

A  chatty  bank  cashier  made  the  usual  re- 
marks about  the  fine  weather,  jotted  down 
the  deposit,  and  with  evident  difficulty  re- 


196       The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

frained  from  cross-questioning  the  strange  de- 
positor. Cutting  him  short,  Felix  hurried  back 
to  the  wagon,  and  under  Mrs.  Costello's  guid- 
ance, they  soon  left  the  town  behind,  and  were 
trotting  along  a  wide  deserted  road,  apparently 
heading  riverwards.  At  noon  they  camped  in 
a  wayside  grove,  fed  and  watered  the  ponies 
and  stayed  their  own  hunger  with  some 
slightly  repellent  scraps  of  Mrs.  Costello's  pro- 
viding. Giving  the  horses  two  good  hours' 
rest,  they  were  again  starting  briskly  forward, 
when  the  danger  sign  of  a  trolley  crossing 
made  Felix  pull  up  and  look  to  right  and  left. 
At  that  minute,  the  horn  of  an  approaching 
car  warned  him  to  wait.  At  the  crossing,  the 
trolley  stopped  to  let  off  a  presentably  dressed 
negro.  To  Felix's  surprise  the  darky  not  only 
nodded  greetings,  but  made  for  the  wagon, 
holding  out  a  dirty  paper  scrawl. 

"For  me  ?"  Felix  asked,  seeing  there  was  no 
address. 

"No,  for  the  missus,  the  old  missus."  As 
the  negro  spoke  Nina,  who  had  been  peering 


The  Zeal  of  Pitcairn  1 97 

out,  exclaimed,  "Why,  Sam!  And  dressed 
like  Beau  Brummel !" 

At  this  Mrs.  Costello  roused  from  her 
stupor  on  the  wagon  floor ;  with  liveliest  inter- 
est she  reached  out  for  the  note.  Reading  was 
no  quick  matter,  but  after  mastering  its  con- 
tents, she  reluctantly  bestowed  two  nickels 
upon  Sam,  who  promptly  trudged  off.  Then, 
dropping  every  semblance  of  illness,  she  begged 
Felix  to  use  his  whip  and  hurry  the  ponies  to- 
wards a  river  whose  close  proximity  was  now 
suggested  by  a  new  colour  in  the  sky  line. 

Obeying  without  question,  Felix  stimulated 
the  tired  beasts  to  considerable  speed.  Nina, 
however,  was  growing  frankly  uneasy,  but  the 
road  abruptly  ended  in  a  grassy  open  space,  a 
tumble-down  freight  house  and  steamboat 
landing  on  the  edge  of  a  stream  which,  though 
of  navigable  size,  was  not  the  river  flowing 
past  Chastellux.  A  small  steamboat  even  now 
tied  up  at  the  wharf  and  poured  out  a  miscel- 
laneous cargo,  an  old  black  horse,  cheese 
boxes,  breakfast  foods,  crates  of  soft-drink 


198       The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

bottles.  To  complete  Felix's  sense  of  moving 
in  a  dream,  Mrs.  Costello  emerged  from  the 
wagon  clad  in  conventional  weeds,  with  long 
crape  veil,  and  mournful  black  gloves. 

A  whistle  blew,  and  the  invalid  began  to 
make  quickly  for  the  landing.  "Only  a  word 
with  the  captain;  wait  right  here,"  she  ex- 
plained. The  freight  house  hid  the  gangplank 
from  view,  but  as  the  boat  swung  into  mid- 
stream, Nina  and  Felix  exchanged  an  amused 
glance  of  prophecy  fulfilled,  at  seeing  Mrs. 
Costello's  emblems  of  woe  waving  from  an 
upper  deck. 

"Do  you  suppose  she  has  left  more  than  one 
mangled  corpse  in  her  wake?"  Felix  asked  at 
last. 

"Rather  queer,  certainly."  Nina  was  ill  at 
ease.  "What  shall  we  do  ?" 

Felix  could  suggest  nothing  better  than  pull- 
ing up  in  the  shade  to  await  developments. 
"They  are  sure  not  to  leave  us  with  this  hand- 
some turnout." 

"I'd  like  to  dress,"  Nina  confessed,  "and  go 


The  Zeal  of  Pitcairn  199 

home.  But  my  civilised  clothes  are  in  old  Mrs. 
Level's  wagon." 

"This  will  help  a  lot,  if  you  ever  have  to 
create  the  role  of  a  criminal  escaping  from  jus- 
tice !"  Standing  at  the  ponies'  heads,  Felix 
lighted  a  cigarette,  and  lazily  looked  out  over 
the  river.  "I'm  sure  we  may  expect  ..." 

At  this  minute  a  black  motor  car  dashed 
down  the  road.  The  front  seat  held  Pitcairn ; 
on  the  back  sat  Seth  Williams  and  a  stout  po- 
liceman. 


CHAPTER  XIII 
Some  dbag  not  Xoofc  over  a  fence  t 

BEARING  down  upon  their  wagon,  the 
motor  car  stopped  with  so  abrupt  a  turn 
that  its  hind  wheels  slewed  round  several  feet 
sideways  in  the  loose  sand. 

"There  now,"  Seth  Williams  demanded  in  a 
tone  of  deep  injury,  "did  I  tell  you  the  gentle- 
man was  well  and  hearty,  just  taking  a  drive 
with  his  friend?" 

"Is  this  him  right  enough  ?"  The  policeman 
turned  to  Pitcairn. 

After  the  first  surprise,  that  functionary  had 
simply  buried  his  head  and  shoulders  between 
two  wheels.  From  underneath  the  car  came  a 
grunted  assent. 

Seth  went  on  with  growing  assurance: 
"This  is  how  it  came  about;  maybe  you'll  be- 
lieve me  now.  This  fellow,"  indicating  Pit- 

200 


Some  May  not  Look  over  a  Fence!  201 

cairn,  "and  the  cop  stopped  us  in  the  road,  held 
us  up  for  murder  and  robbery.  My  wife  tells 
him,  'We've  a  gentleman  boarder,  but  he's 
gone  ahead  with  our  lady  boarder.  They'd  a 
matter  of  business  in  Mount  Laurel,  and  we 
go  round  by  the  short  cut  and  join  'em  at 
where  the  boat  comes,  by  nightfall,  or  maybe, 
next  day.'  Do  you  see?" 

"That's  all  quite  true,"  Felix  put  in. 

"Then  they  sent  my  family,  wife,  sisters, 
mother-in-law,  every  one  of  them  into  town, 
to  the  lock-up,  Mount  Laurel,  I  mean,  and 
bring  me  here  to  prove  the  gentleman  was 
dead!"  Seth  ended  contemptuously;  "and 
I'll  have  the  law  on  them,  if  I  am  a  poor 
man." 

The  laconic  Pitcairn  now  emerged  with  a 
touch  to  his  leather  cap. 

"Very  sorry,  sir.  My  fault.  You  see,"  he 
addressed  the  air  impersonally,  "the  master 
isn't  just  the  most  used  at  handling  a  lever,  and 
when  he  asked  me  how  fast  she  could  go  and 
started  out  alone,  I  was  looking  for  trouble. 


2O2       The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

The  mistress  went  off  for  a  visit  to  her 
mother's,  and  when  not  Mr.  Gwynne  nor  his 
motor  turned  up  next  day,  I  began  to  hunt. 
Borrowed  this  car,  and  telephoned  all  the  re- 
pair shops." 

Felix  gave  a  glance  of  dismay  at  Nina,  who 
sat  quite  pale  and  motionless.  Their  frolic  was 
assuming  serious  shape. 

"Late  last  night,"  Pitcairn  began  to  enjoy 
the  tale  of  his  own  proficiency,  "I  heard  of  a 
gipsy  camp  and  hurried  there  not  long  after 
daybreak.  They'd  all  gone  without  leaving 
hardly  a  trace,  but  back  in  the  bushes,  covered 
with  a  brown  canvas  .  .  ." 

"One  of  their  dirty  tents!"  put  in  the  out- 
raged policeman. 

.  .  .  "Lay  our  new  motor,  smashed  as  if 
some  one  had  stopped  her  so  sudden  that  she 
turned  turtle.  After  that  I  saw  it  all  plain.  It 
took  some  time  to  get  Mr.  Brady  to  come 
along,  swearing  out  a  warrant  and  all,  but  we 
rushed  the  thing  through,  found  the  gipsies,  had 
'em  safe  jailed.  This  fellow  said  you  was  driv- 


Some  May  not  Look  over  a  Fence!   203 

ing  along  one  of  these  river  roads,  but  it 
sounded  such  a  put-up  job !" 

Nina  and  Felix  exchanged  a  disturbed 
glance.  Their  adventure  certainly  bore  no  re- 
semblance to  reputable  truth. 

"Yes,"  Seth  now  jeered  openly.  "Your 
master's  off  for  a  little  rest  from  your  gab  and 
the  stink  of  your  dirty  machine ;  and  you  think 
the  gipsies  have  him  dead  and  ate." 

"You  seem  to  have  been  very  thoughtful  and 
efficient,  Pitcairn."  Felix  was  restraining  a 
strong  impulse  to  reward  this  laudable  zeal 
with  anything  but  praise.  "A  natural  mis- 
take. I'll  give  Mr.  Brady  something  for  his 
trouble,  and  then — by  the  way,  does  Mrs. 
Gwynne  know  of  your  alarm?" 

"Sure,  sir !  We  called  her  up  every  hour  or 
so,  to  hear  if  she  had  news !" 

"There  must  be  a  telephone  here  in  that 
freight  house,  but  every  one  left  when  that 
steamer  went  up  stream,"  Felix  began,  when  a 
quick  look  from  Seth  Williams  warned  him  to 
go  no  farther. 


204       The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

After  some  discussion  Brady  sanctioned  the 
breaking  of  a  window,  the  telephone  was 
found  and  Noel  Place,  the  lock-up,  and  police 
headquarters  duly  told  that  Felix  Gwynne  had 
been  discovered,  alive  and  in  good  health.  No 
sooner  was  the  receiver  hung  up,  than  a  loud 
call  took  Brady  back  to  the  wire.  "Well,"  he 
exclaimed,  "this  is  a  funny  day.  Jasper 
Cooper  and  Henrietta  his  wife  have  sworn  out 
a  warrant  against  a  woman  namer  Rhoda  Cos- 
tello,  for  stealing  a  bag  of  money  from  her 
own  dead  husband.  Headquarters  got  my 
message  about  Mr.  Gwynne,  and  now  they 
send  me  right  off  on  this  job.  Maybe  this — 
gentleman,"  sarcastically,  to  Williams,  "can 
tell  us  where  Mrs.  Costello  is,  too !" 

After  one  look  of  consultation,  Nina 
and  Felix  decided  to  leave  the  answer  to 
Seth. 

"And  much  use  me  telling  a  bright  cop,  who 
knows  too  much  to  believe  what  a  poor  gipsy 
says,"  Seth  muttered.  "Still,  I'll  tell,  there's 
nothing  to  hide.  Mrs.  Costello  came  home 


Some  May  not  Look  over  a  Fence !  205 

from  the  funeral  with  us,  and  stopped  a  day. 
Then  she  went  off,  and  it's  yourself  knows  as 
well  as  me  where's  she  gone  to.  But  this  I  do 
know.  The  money  is  hers,  true  enough,  and 
what  those  Coopers  say  is  a  lie.  Rhoda  was  a 
good  wife  to  him.  Tended  Peter  Costello  well, 
and  gave  him  the  finest  burying.  You  mind, 
lady,"  to  the  reluctant  Nina,  "we  all  went  to  it, 
the  day  you  and  the  gentleman  kept  camp  for 
us.  We  said  we'd  been  to  a  fair,"  he  con- 
fessed, "for  it's  not  lucky  speaking  much  of  the 
dead,  and  Rhody  came  home  with  us  that 
night,  a  stricken  woman,  grieving  for  her  man, 
so  she  was." 

"We'll  have  to  trace  her,  that's  all,"  Brady 
averred.  "Money's  gone,  and  a  warrant  out 
against  her." 

"What  can  I  do  for  you,  Miss  Braeme?" 
Felix  assumed  a  composure  he  was  far  from 
feeling. 

Nina  shook  her  head.  "Nothing,  Mr. 
Gwynne,  but  make  off  as  fast  as  you  can.  Mr. 
Williams  will  drive  me  back  to  where  my 


206       The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

clothes  are,  and  I'll  take  the  first  morning  train 
for  New  York." 

With  much  regret,  Felix  could  not  but  own 
that  no  escort  of  his  could  do  more  than 
heighten  the  complications  in  which  Nina  was 
already  involved.  Sitting  by  Pitcairn,  he  si- 
lently chafed  at  the  run  of  ill-luck  through 
which  he  and  the  girl  had  drifted  into  so  equiv- 
ocal a  position. 

A  long,  swift  ride  through  the  falling  night 
brought  him  to  Chastellux.  Going  at  once  to 
the  telephone,  he  gave  Adelaide  an  account  of 
his  adventure,  dwelling  lightly  on  Nina  and 
her  share  in  his  travels.  Whether  anxiety  or 
distance  had  softened  Adelaide's  anger,  she  at 
least  promised  to  come  home  in  the  early 
morning,  speaking  as  if  his  departure  had  been 
an  ordinary  absence,  needing  no  explanations. 

In  truth,  Adelaide  felt  a  fathomless  relief  at 
knowing  not  only  that  her  husband  was  alive 
and  well,  but  that  his  odious  threat  ended  in 
nothing  worse  than  a  fantastic  adventure,  im- 
prudent, undesirable,  but  not  highly  reprehen- 


Some  May  not  Look  over  a  Fence !  207 

sible.  She  even  laughed  a  little  when  he  de- 
scribed the  sheepish  looks  of  Brady  and  Pit- 
cairn,  on  finding  the  gipsy's  story  true. 

At  breakfast  she  bore  her  mother's  condol- 
ing manner  with  a  shade  of  impatience,  gently 
intimating  that  she  perhaps  understood  Felix 
better  than  older  and  wiser  people.  Gipsies, 
she  thought,  with  immense  tolerance ;  surely  no 
one  would  mind  them !  If  it  had  been  Rachel 
Bernstein,  or  one  of  her  ilk ! 

Taking  an  early  train  for  home,  she  started 
without  seeing  the  morning  paper.  In  the  car, 
her  eye  was  arrested  by  a  print  in  the  sheet  of 
a  gentleman  in  front,  a  yellow  journal  with 
shrieking  black  headlines.  Felix's  name!  But 
she  would  not  read.  There  would  be  a  half 
hour  in  town,  before  the  train  left  for  Chastel- 
lux.  At  the  news-stand  she  bought  a  copy  of 
the  paper.  There  it  all  stared  her  in  the  face. 
Felix  and  a  woman,  an  actress,  his  picture  with 
hers,  a  pretty  creature,  even  in  blotched  repro- 
duction. And  oh!  the  text!  Letters  of  every 
size,  inch-high  headings  to  columns  of  finest 


208       The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

print.  The  policeman's  account,  the  story 
from  headquarters!  Imaginary  sketches  of 
gipsy  camps  and  gipsies.  Above  all,  blazoned 
to  the  world,  the  fact  that  Felix,  her  husband, 
had  been  travelling  up  and  down  the  country 
in  gipsy  vans,  with  a  young  and  pretty  actress. 
Every  detail  that  he  had  kept  back  till  they 
should  meet  dovetailed  exactly  with  this  hate- 
ful exposure.  He  said,  "One  of  the  women 
drove  with  me."  Adelaide  pictured  a  dirty 
crone,  never  this  piquante  girl.  Of  course  he 
had  known  her  at  Rachel  Bernstein's,  had  been 
constantly  seeing  her  in  town.  They  arranged 
to  go  off  together!  Could  any  guilt  be 
plainer  ? 

Neatly  folding  her  paper,  Adelaide  took  a 
return  train  to  Noel  Place ! 


CHAPTER  XIV 
fl&r.  (Sluorn's  Xucft 

I'M  thinking  no  more  boats  leave  this 
land's-end  place  to-night!"  Abandoned 
by  Pitcairn,  Policeman  Brady  became  vaguely 
propitiating,  although  the  palpable  fact  that 
Seth  Williams  had  this  time  told  the  truth  by 
no  means  proved  the  gipsy  unlikely  to  kill  and 
eat  reputable  citizens.  Indeed  Felix,  having 
turned  up  alive  and  well,  seemed  merely  an  un- 
fortunate obstacle  to  lawful  and  merited  pun- 
ishment. "I  guess  you'll  have  to  give  me  a  lift 
along  with  the  lady,"  Brady  ended. 

For  a  second  Seth's  oblique  eyes  met  Nina's 
in  consultation.  Then  he  nodded  morosely. 
"As  far  as  the  trolley.  You're  a  great  load  for 
tired  horses,  and  we've  a  big  distance  to  travel 
back  to  my  people  to-night." 
209 


2io       The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

"But  you  can't  get  them  off  without  me,  all 
right,"  the  officer  pointed  out.  "They're 
locked  up,  safe  enough." 

This  convinced  Seth  that  his,  or  rather  Mrs. 
Costello's  team  must  bear  the  added  weight, 
and  showing  the  utmost  bad  grace,  he  started 
off  with  Brady  at  his  side,  while  Nina  rested  as 
best  she  might  on  the  jolting  floor  within.  On 
the  whole,  her  stay  with  the  gipsies  had  not 
turned  out  too  badly.  Of  course  there  had 
been  certain  risks;  it  would  be  pleasant  to  lay 
aside  that  small  revolver  now  hidden  in  her 
bodice.  Risks  were  to  be  expected,  but  the 
people  treated  her  well,  and  although  at  one 
juncture  this  last  episode  threatened  annoy- 
ance, after  all  here  she  was,  under  police  pro- 
tection, heading  towards  civilised  garments 
and  the  New  York  train.  Looking  back  from 
a  plane  of  safety,  it  was  rather  fun  to  have 
been  tracked  across  country  as  a  murder- 
ess in  company  with  her  putative  victim;  and 
as  the  adventure  ended  well  there  could  be  no 
possible  harm  in  having  acutely  enjoyed  the 


Mr.  Quorn's  Luck  2 1 1 

society  of  Mr.  Felix  Gvvynne.  In  this  com- 
fortable frame  of  mind  she  bade  the  gipsies  a 
friendly  good-bye,  and  after  a  night  at  an  inn 
of  usual  country-town  stuffiness,  took  the  first 
morning  train  for  New  York.  Tired  from 
yesterday's  expedition,  she  soon  fell  into  a 
doze,  while  the  local  train  stopped,  bumped, 
and  slowly  dragged  its  way  citywards.  Pres- 
ently she  grew  uneasy  with  a  sense  of  being 
stared  at;  her  ears  registered  half-heard  whis- 
perings. 

"I  tell  you  it's  her,  right  enough.  Same 
face,"  a  woman's  voice  insisted. 

"You're  always  seeing  likenesses,  mother. 
What  would  she  be  doing  here,  round  our 
way?"  a  man  protested. 

Through  closed  lashes  Nina  saw  a  middle- 
aged  couple  peering  now  at  her,  now  at  an  out- 
spread newspaper. 

"Just  where  she  would  be,  by  now."  The 
woman  drew  her  ringer  along  the  text.  Her 
husband  went  to  the  cooler  for  water,  on  his 
way  favouring  Nina  with  detailed  scrutiny. 


212       The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

He  then  whispered  at  length  with  two  friends 
further  down  the  aisle.  In  turn,  each  of  these 
made  a  deliberate  pilgrimage  past  her,  then 
other  men.  By  this  time,  Nina  felt  pilloried 
in  an  agony  of  discomfort,  not  daring  to  buy 
a  paper,  fearing  to  look  to  right  or  left.  Being 
stared  at  on  the  stage  was  one  thing,  but  this 
direct  personal  investigation  seemed  an  out- 
rage, and  one  which  left  her  without  redress. 
Once  in  New  York,  to  avoid  a  repetition  of 
this  impertinence  in  street  cars,  she  took  a  cab 
to  her  boarding-house.  There  letters  awaited 
her,  one  from  Rupert  telling  of  improvement. 
Sea  air  had  done  wonders;  before  long  he 
might  hope  to  work;  little  enough  at  first,  a 
sketch  or  two,  perhaps;  she  also  found  a  line 
from  Mr.  Quorn,  her  manager.  Owing  to  un- 
expected repairs  to  his  Broadway  house,  "The 
Romany  Rawnie"  must  be  rehearsed  in  an- 
other city,  the  city  of  Felix  Gwynne.  She 
must  report  to  him  at  once,  and  hold  herself 
ready  to  join  the  company  without  an  hour's 
delay. 


Mr.  Quorn's  Luck  213 

A  knock  at  the  door,  her  landlady,  an 
elderly,  respectable  widow  with  daugh- 
ters. 

"I  was  just  going  to  say,  Miss  Braeme,"  the 
woman's  thin  lips  were  pinched  into  a  smile 
which,  even  through  her  preoccupation,  struck 
Nina  as  disagreeable,  "that  we  wouldn't  be 
able  to  let  you  keep  your  room  after  to-day 
week." 

"But,  Mrs.  Prout,"  Nina  was  ransacking  a 
drawer  for  fresh  gloves  and  veil,  "your  house 
can  hardly  be  full  now,  with  summer  coming, 
and  people  leaving  town.  It's  most  inconveni- 
ent for  me  to  find  lodgings  and  move  in  a 
hurry.  Our  play  is  going  into  rehearsal,  I 
shall  be  rushed  .  .  ." 

"That's  just  it.  I  won't  say,"  the  woman 
grudgingly  admitted,  "but  what  you've  al- 
ways behaved  like  a  perfect  lady,  here,"  the 
emphasis  was  unmistakable,  "but  I  don't  care 
to  have  actresses.  One  thing,  the  reporters 
running  in  on  us  till  midnight,  yesterday,  and 
the  bell  going  so  hard  again  this  morning.  Of 


214       The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

course,  I'm  bringing  up  young  girls  of  my 
own,  and  ..." 

"Very  well !"  Nina  had  found  her  gloves 
and  fled  downstairs,  feeling  sick  and  impotent. 
At  the  theatre  quite  another  greeting  awaited 
her,  Mr.  Quorn  in  high  good  humour,  with 
every  sign  of  relish.  He  fairly  ran  at  her  with 
papers,  late  night  editions,  every  morning  is- 
sue, early  evening  papers.  Her  picture  with 
Felix!  Fancy  sketches  of  Seth  Williams,  of 
Pitcairn,  of  the  broken  auto,  of  Rhoda 
Costello  (attired  like  Meg  Merrilies)  mak- 
ing off  with  a  mealsack  full  of  gold  pieces. 
And  the  headlines!  Some,  conservative 
enough,  only  stated  bald  facts,  and  some 
which  literally  stopped  the  beating  of  her 
heart. 

"You  know,"  Mr.  Quorn  magnanimously 
confessed,  "I  didn't  see  much  in  your  idea,  get- 
ting up  your  part  from  the  real  thing.  The 
public  has  a  certain  notion  of  a  gipsy,  and  of 
course  that's  naturally  what  they  come  to  see. 
When  you  give  them  something  different  it 


Mr.  Quorn's  Luck  215 

mixes  them  up,  and  I've  never  known  that  not 
to  irritate  them.  A  realistic  stage  setting  is  all 
right,  because  they  like  to  say,  'yes,  we  had 
that  kind  of  tray  on  our  boat,  last  summer.' 
That's  one  thing,  but  realistic  treatment  of 
character  is  mighty  ticklish.  You  see  how  the 
critics  mostly  jump  on  anything  out  of  line. 
They  want  to  be  able  to  give  a  snapshot 
opinion  in  the  very  first  scene,  and  compare  the 
characters  to  people  in  some  other  play.  I  was 
afraid  all  along  your  studies  from  life  might 
get  us  the  rough  side  of  their  tongues,  but  you 
were  bent  on  trying,  and  now,"  he  waved  tri- 
umphantly at  the  heap  of  papers,  "you've  man- 
aged the  cleverest  piece  of  personal  advertis- 
ing, since  Rachel  Bernstein  horsewhipped  that 
other  woman,  before  your  time,  way  back  in 
the  seventies." 

"Mr.  Quorn,"  Nina  was  in  emergencies  a 
person  of  immense  dash  and  instant  decision, 
"I  came  to  ask  a  release  from  my  contract.  It 
will  be  quite  impossible  for  me  to  play  The 
Romany  Rawnie'!" 


216       The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

Mr.  Quorn  shoved  a  pot  hat  off  his  bald 
forehead,  crossed  his  long,  thin  legs,  and  sur- 
veyed Nina  as  she  stood  leaning  one  hand  on 
his  littered  office  table.  He  tilted  back  his 
chair,  also,  and  relighted  an  extinct  cigar, 
never  turning  his  shrewd  eyes  from  her.  The 
lengthy  silence,  the  non-committal  stare,  pro- 
duced their  effect.  Nina  was  vaguely  fright- 
ened. With  a  gallant  effort  at  naturalness,  she 
offered,  "If  you  will  excuse  my  hurrying  off, 
I'm  very  busy  to-day,  and  Marie  Merle,  that 
little  black-eyed  girl,  can  do  the  part.  Perhaps 
you  would  like  me  to  coach  her  ?" 

"One  moment,  young  lady!"  Mr.  Quorn's 
ironical  voice  gave  her  a  sense  of  being  tethered 
by  the  shortest  rope.  "You  are  very  thought- 
ful, considerate,  but  isn't  there  just  one  little 
point  you've  overlooked  ?" 

"I  know" — Nina  grew  eager — "the  money! 
Something  must  be  clone  about  that,  of  course. 
I'll  pay  you,  I'll  find  a  way,  but  not  this.  In- 
deed, Mr.  Quorn,  you  must  see  yourself! 
Why,  my  landlady  has  turned  me  out.  No 


Mr.  Quorn's  Luck  217 

decent  girl  could  go  on  with  the  part  after," 
she  pointed  to  the  papers,  "after  this !" 

But  what  Mr.  Quorn  saw  happened  to  be 
exactly  the  reverse.  By  heaven's  favour,  a 
piece  which  he  knew  to  be  flimsy  received  un- 
expected and  entirely  original  advertising,  the 
kind  of  thing  to  make  it  go  long  and  far.  And 
here,  this  perverse  girl,  on  whom  he  had  risked 
hard  cash,  assuming  all  chances  of  failure,  ill- 
ness, or  other  calamity,  proposed  to  play  him 
false.  The  comfort  of  having  such  a  hold 
upon  her  almost  inclined  him  to  offer  large 
loans  to  every  player  of  value  in  the  company. 
Although  he  plainly  realised  that  without  this 
hold  she  would  be  off  into  space,  her  point  of 
view  was  utterly  beyond  him.  If  the  papers 
were  misstating,  he  himself  would  write  signed 
denials. 

Nina  here  made  a  despairing  gesture. 

He  went  on  to  explain  that  such  correspond- 
ence would  serve  to  keep  public  interest  alight. 
"Just  show  me  where  this  is  incorrect,"  he 
pointed  to  the  most  blazoned  sheet. 


2 1 8       The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

"The  facts  are  true  enough,"  Nina  managed 
to  bring  out,  "but  the  inference!"  Living 
among  people  to  whom  all  matter  was  free  of 
discussion,  she  had  thought  herself  well  used 
to  putting  any  situation  clearly  into  words,  but 
this  debate  upon  a  strange  man's  relation  to 
herself  touched  a  new  feeling,  and  the  clever, 
theoretically  sophisticated  girl  became  the 
woman  of  primitive  modesty,  quivering  at  the 
violation  of  her  privacy.  She  glanced  through 
another  long,  hateful  column.  "Yes,  Brady 
must  have  given  them  this,  there  are  no  mis- 
takes." 

"Well,  then,"  Mr.  Quorn  liberally  con- 
ceded, "we  can't  direct  what  people  are  to 
think,  and  if  you  really  were  driving  about  the 
country  with  a  man  like  Felix  Gwynne,  in  a 
gipsy  cart — of  course,  Miss  Braeme,  /  know  it 
was  all  right,  knowing  you.  But  after  all,  take 
a  common-sense  view  of  it,  child,"  he  went  on, 
not  unkindly.  "You  would  do  that  crazy 
stunt,  and  tumbled  into  a  bit  of  a  scrape." 
Whatever  Mr.  Quorn's  private  convictions,  his 


Mr.  Quorn's  Luck  219 

manner  expressed  full  belief  in  her  version. 
"And  of  course,  this  being  a  dull  season,  the 
papers  got  hold  of  it.  Now  suppose  I  let  you 
do  what  you  want,  let  you  off?  What's  going 
to  happen  then?  Suppose  you  owed  no  one  a 
dollar,  how  are  you  going  to  make  out  and 
keep  Rupert  till  he's  fit  for  work?" 

Nina's  excitement  was  ebbing,  and  with  a 
shiver  of  apprehension  she  knew  this  to  be  per- 
fectly rational. 

He  went  on :  "You  tell  me  your  landlady 
has  already  made  trouble,  and  you  pay  her! 
How  do  you  think  it  will  be  when  it  is  the 
other  way  about,  when  you  want  some  one  to 
pay  you,  to  give  you  work?  And  what  can 
you  do,  but  act  a  little?  A  shopgirl,  perhaps! 
No  high-toned  establishment  would  take  you, 
just  now,  and  the  other  sort — well !  You'd 
have  far  less  notoriety  to  face  here,  with  me." 
After  watching  the  effect  of  this  for  a  moment, 
he  ended  encouragingly,  "Don't  you  spend  an- 
other night  under  the  roof  of  that  woman  who 
threw  you  out;  just  go  pack  your  things,  and 


220       The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

I'll  'phone  home  that  you  are  coming  to  stop 
with  us  till  the  whole  show  moves  over,  for  re- 
hearsals. You  know  I  live  with  three  daugh- 
ters, Miss  Braeme.  No  doubt  you'll  find  us 
pretty  slow,  after  careering  round  the  country 
with  gipsies  and  poets.  When  we  have  a  night 
off  to  stay  in  and  be  happy,  we  start  the  pianola 
for  a  while,  then  finish  up  with  a  hand  of 
bridge,  my  little  rubber  band,  I  call  it!  Now 
this  is  too  bad !"  he  exclaimed  after  a  brisk  talk 
at  the  telephone.  "Bertha  says  that  one  of  our 
girls  who's  been  sick  for  several  days  turns 
out  to  have  diphtheria.  Doctor's  just  been  in 
and  says  there's  no  doubt.  Too  bad,  but  we 
can't  risk  having  you  catch  it.  You've  got 
to  put  up  with  that  woman  for  a  few  days, 
and  I'll  make  proper  arrangements  for  your 
lodging,  when  I  go  over  to  see  to  the 
rehearsals." 

Felix  meanwhile  waited  Adelaide's  return  to 
Chastellux  with  extreme  impatience.  He  not 
only  felt  that  explanation  was  due  his  wife, 


Mr.  Quern's  Luck  221 

but  after  glancing  at  a  paper  brought  in  haste 
by  Pitcairn  (who  seriously  urged  prosecution 
for  a  libellous  picture  of  the  motor),  Felix  also 
saw  that  it  behooved  him  to  take  immediate 
steps  towards  clearing  Nina.  As  time  passed 
and  Adelaide  failed  to  appear,  growing  in- 
creasingly restless,  he  finally  telephoned  to 
Noel  Place,  only  to  learn  that  his  wife  had 
written.  His  offer  to  join  her  there  met  with 
such  prompt  discouragement  that  he  was  mis- 
erably reduced  to  waiting  for  the  afternoon's 
mail.  Only  a  line — "After  consulting  Papa 
and  Mamma,  I  have  decided  that  unless  you 
can  deny  being  with  gipsies,  and  driving  about 
the  country  with  an  actress  as  the  papers 
say,  it  will  be  impossible  for  me  to  go  back  to 
you." 

Felix  wasted  some  hours  in  merely  feeling 
angry.  Then  a  wish  to  be  fair,  a  recognition 
that  things  did  look  decidedly  queer,  cooled  his 
temper.  It  seemed  that  these  people  must  al- 
ways believe  the  worst,  such  was  the  colour  of 
their  minds,  their  misfortune,  likewise  his, 


222       The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

since  he  had  so  little  habit  of  reckoning  with 
appearances.  Adelaide  would,  of  course,  re- 
member the  unfortunate  words  with  which  he 
had  left  her;  pity  she  could  not  have  acted 
without  consulting  her  family.  Still,  he 
shrugged  his  shoulders  at  a  flash  of  inward 
vision ;  having  fancied  that  kind  of  woman,  he 
must  consequently  be  willing  to  take  her  faults 
with  her  qualities,  like  a  man.  His  answering 
letter  was  a  candid  account  of  the  entire  esca- 
pade. Pocketing  his  pride,  withstanding  an 
impulse  to  hold  himself  above  explanation,  he 
gave  a  complete  narrative  of  every  event  since 
their  parting.  "And  indeed,  Adelaide,  in 
thinking — so — you  not  only  wrong  yourself 
and  me,  but  Miss  Braeme.  As  for  her,  I  am 
going  to  give  you  the  most  convincing  proof. 
Come  home,  dear,  and  have  her  here  with  us. 
When  I  ask  this,  to  throw  her  with  you,  my 
wife,  no  one  can  doubt  .  .  ." 

But  at  Noel  Place  this  missive  created  not 
doubt,  but  certainty.  That  Felix  should  plan 
to  associate  with  his  wife  a  play  actress  whom 


Mr.  Quorn's  Luck  223 

he  had  vulgarly  compromised  seemed  the  pitch 
of  indecent  unreason,  the  wish  of  an  obnoxious 
maniac,  savouring  of  Shelley,  Mahomet,  and 
Brigham  Young. 

Colonel  Noel  simply  wrote  that  as  Mr. 
Gwynne's  own  letter  plainly  confirmed  the 
newspaper  statements,  Mrs.  Gwynne  would 
continue  to  remain  under  her  father's  protec- 
tion. To  this  he  added  a  request,  from 
her,  that  as  she  was  much  upset,  Mr. 
Gwynne  should  refrain  from  all  commu- 
nication. 

This  solemn  document  at  first  aroused  in 
Felix  a  savage  wish  to  earn  it !  To  find  Nina, 
or  any  one  else,  to  celebrate  his  emancipation 
gaily,  with  resounding  echoes.  Then  sud- 
denly, his  taste  revolted.  Surely  they  were 
trying  to  force  him  into  downfall,  against  his 
inclinations.  This  parcel  of  stupid  Noels  had 
already  obtained  too  much  influence  over  his 
life.  They  should  never  be  given  a  power  to 
wreck  Nina's.  She  at  least  must  be  saved,  but 
how?  After  thinking  over  every  possible 


224       The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

means  of  succor,  he  could  only  hope  against 
hope  that  aid  might  be  had  from  Mrs.  Le 
Grand,  who  was  lingering  in  town,  under  a 
rare  spell  of  wifely  craving  for  Harry's  com- 
pany. 


CHAPTER  XV 
TIQlbfle  ©tbcrs  /fca£  Steal  a  fjorse 


HARRY  LE  GRAND'S  accident  left  in 
its  wake  a  wholly  unlooked-for  develop- 
ment. Long  before  his  ankle  was  out  of 
plaster,  he  and  Alice  had  actually  established 
a  flourishing  intimacy,  all  the  more  gratifying 
since  neither  of  them  had  been  in  the  least 
aware  of  a  need  of  it.  It  began  quite  spon- 
taneously with  Alice,  when  she  was  delighted 
and  amazed  to  feel  the  prick  of  genuine  dis- 
tress at  the  first  sight  of  her  husband  stretched 
out  on  a  hospital  cot.  On  his  side,  if  a  trifle 
embarrassed  at  this  display  of  emotion,  Harry 
ended  by  taking  it  in  good  part,  although  being 
the  object  of  Alice's  enthusiasm,  while  highly 
flattering,  did  involve  an  amount  of  mental 
activity  which  would  ill  have  suited  the  exist- 
ence of  Harry  in  full  health  and  freedom. 
225 


226       The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

During  a  long  convalescence,  however,  the 
invalid  grew  to  make  a  more  or  less  congenial 
third  in  his  wife's  lifelong  tete-a-tete  with  Al- 
bert Yule.  The  two  consulted  him  on  many 
fine-spun  points  of  ethics  and  behaviour,  valu- 
ing his  perfectly  unhackneyed  verdicts  upon 
such  books  as  he  could  be  induced  to  tolerate, 
and  taking  immense  pains  to  eradicate  his  in- 
ward conviction  that  all  literature  and  art 
could  be  divided  in  two  classes — the  well- 
wrought  or  the  attractive.  While  Alice  seri- 
ously put  her  mind  to  overcoming  her  hus- 
band's distrust  of  good  workmanship  (point- 
ing out  the  inconsistency  of  holding  to  a  mas- 
tery of  craft  in  his  cook  or  his  tailor,  while 
denying  its  necessity  in  the  case  of  a  novelist 
or  a  playwright,)  Albert  Yule  clinched  her 
arguments  with  careful  selections.  In  luring 
Harry  into  the  ranks  of  the  enlightened,  these 
fast  friends  had  the  reward  of  discovering  one 
more  common  ground  of  the  most  inexhausti- 
ble interest.  Alice's  feminine  impetuosity 
being  held  in  leash  by  Albert's  masculine  cau- 


While  Others  May  Steal  a  Horse     227 

tion,  the  pair  actually  succeeded  in  leading 
their  neophyte,  by  the  broad  highroad  of  Po- 
lish romance,  into  the  shadows  of  saddest  Rus- 
sian fiction.  Here  Alice,  too  sanguine,  forced 
the  pace  with  an  evening  of  Dostoevski,  hold- 
ing in  her  sling  later  and  gloomier  works.  She 
began  even  to  dream  of  offering  Harry  a  sus- 
taining meal  of  Gorky,  when  reaction  set  in! 
At  chapter  three  of  Crime  and  Punishment, 
Harry  (who  was  nearly  out  of  plaster,  and 
growing  daily  more  restive)  found  the  style 
too  slow  for  a  detective  story,  not  up  to  sev- 
eral popular  English  authors.  The  friends' 
missionary  zeal  had  certainly  developed  his 
atrophied  critical  powers,  but  hardly  in  the  di- 
rection at  which  they  were  aiming  .  .  .  "And 
it's  all  a  mistake,"  he  fairly  took  the  bit 
between  his  teeth,  "to  tell  you  so  much  at  the 
start.  In  the  Leavenworth  Case,"  he  sapiently 
pointed  out,  "you  never  know  till  the  end  who 
did  it." 

Albert  and  Alice  were   in   far  too  perfect 
sympathy  to  require  the  outward  solace  of  ex- 


228       The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

changing  glances.  Luckily,  a  diversion  was 
here  made  by  the  eruption  of  Bessy,  who  im- 
partially kissed  the  trio  and  announced  her  in- 
tention of  staying  in  town  with  the  family, 
through  June.  Bessy  had  emerged  from  the 
winter's  campaign  with  a  serious  admirer, 
whom  she  felt  loath  to  leave  for  a  series  of 
promised  visits  to  the  country. 

Alice's  enthusiasm  for  domestic  life  was  run- 
ning so  high  that,  instead  of  viewing  the  girl's 
presence  as  a  nuisance,  she  at  once  fell  to  plan- 
ning her  stepdaughter's  initiation  into  their 
circle  of  intellectual  light.  As  Bessy  went  off 
to  her  room,  however,  Harry  gave  the  conver- 
sation a  less  improving  twist,  by  bringing  up 
the  absorbing  topic  of  the  Gwynnes.  No  one 
had  seen  Felix  since  the  newspaper  scandal ; 
rumour  immured  him  at  Chastellux.  Ade- 
laide's parents  had  merely  notified  the  family  of 
her  return  to  Noel  Place.  It  was  also  known 
that  the  gipsy  episode  would  bear  further  fruit, 
as  one  Jasper  Cooper  and  Henrietta  his  wife 
were  bringing  suit  against  Rhoda  Costello,  for 


While  Others  May  Steal  a  Horse    229 

illegally  making  off  with  a  bag  of  gold,  the 
same  deposited  by  Felix  in  the  Mount  Laurel 
Bank.  Report  had  it  that  their  case  would 
come  up  at  no  distant  time,  and  interest  was 
kept  aflame  by  the  prospect  of  Felix  Gwynne 
and  Nina  Braeme  appearing  together  on  the 
witness  stand. 

If  Harry's  literary  judgments  were  to  be 
swayed  by  the  opinion  of  experts,  on  points  of 
general  behaviour  his  voice  came  with  no  un- 
certain sound.  He  had  scant  patience  with  a 
man  who  handled  doubtful  pleasures  like  an 
amateur.  Such  matters  were  susceptible  of  de- 
cent regulation  and  reserve.  Not  that  he  ex- 
pressed himself  thus  crudely  to  Alice,  although 
the  arrival  of  a  note  from  Felix  himself 
aroused  this  mentor  to  considerable  freedom 
of  speech. 

Alice  herself  felt  romantically  inclined  to- 
wards offering  Nina  hospitality.  Both  she  and 
Albert  implicitly  believed  Gwynne's  statements 
concerning  the  girl.  Alice  also  hailed  the 
chance  of  this  glimpse  into  a  new  and  improb- 


230       The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

able  world,  and  at  once  pictured  the  interest  of 
attending  rehearsals,  quelling-  Nina's  forward 
admirers,  and  exerting  an  influence  upon  the 
contemporary  stage. 

Albert,  who  genuinely  cared  for  Felix,  saw 
the  immense  importance  of  having  an  estab- 
lished person,  like  Mrs.  Le  Grand,  give  public 
testimony  in  his  favour.  Even  Felix  had  seen 
the  usefulness  of  such  protection  as  only  Alice 
could  afford.  Undoubtedly,  the  new-married 
couples,  whom  he  had  helped,  would  hasten  to 
Miss  Braeme's  aid,  but  a  runaway  bride  and  a 
public  stenographer  were  hardly  the  most  con- 
vincing of  whitewashes.  Mrs.  Bradish  Lau- 
rence had  long  since  migrated  to  Bar  Har- 
bor, where,  moreover,  she  was  now  riveted  by 
an  attack  of  gout,  and  owing  to  rehearsals, 
Miss  Braeme  could  not  of  course  leave  town. 
All  this  the  letter  explained  at  length.  Mrs.  Le 
Grand  was  his  only  hope.  Of  Adelaide  he 
breathed  never  a  word. 

"It  certainly  seems  very  hard,"  Alice  ven- 
tured, with  a  propitiating  glance  at  Harry. 


While  Others  May  Steal  a  Horse    231 

"People  should  consider  those  things  be- 
forehand." He  twisted  his  fair  moustache  ju- 
dicially. "Gwynne  thinks  it  is  the  easiest 
thing  in  the  world  to  make  an  ass  of  himself, 
and  let  somebody  else  see  him  through.  Now 
it  just  amounts  to  this.  No  doubt,"  his  con- 
cession sounded  highly  perfunctory,  "it  was 
all  right,  between  him  and  the  girl.  You  and 
Yule  know  him  and  are  ready  to  go  bail  for 
that.  But  how  many  people  are  likely  to  be- 
lieve you?" 

"Still,"  Alice  paused,  "if  we  know  it !" 
"Know!"  Harry's  concession  hardly  bore 
pressure.  "How  on  earth  can  you,  or  Yule,  or 
any  one  else  possibly  know  for  sure,  what  hap- 
pened when  that  precious  pair  were  trapesing 
round  together  in  gipsy  vans?  I  know, 
though,  one  thing  for  very  certain.  All  right, 
or  all  wrong,  I  don't  permit  the  house  where 
my  young  daughter  lives  to  be  used  as  a  refuge 
for  imprudent  theatre  ladies,  whether  they  are 
innocent  acquaintances  of  Master  Felix 
Gwynne,  or — the  usual  thing!" 


232       The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

This  allusion  to  Bessy  effectively  silenced  a 
conscientious  stepmother.  Consoling  herself 
with  the  reflection  that  if  it  had  been  her  own 
child,  she  would  have  braved  public  opinion  in 
the  cause  of  friendship,  Alice  bowed  to  fate. 
She  merely  begged  Albert  Yule  to  break  her 
refusal  by  word  of  mouth  to  Felix,  bidding 
him  gather  all  possible  tidings  at  Chastel- 
lux  of  the  young  man's  state  of  mind  and 
body. 

In  spite  of  the  disappointment,  Harry's  im- 
petuosity had  filled  her  with  a  certain  pride  and 
approval.  Vaguely  she  wondered  if  his  lit- 
erary advancement  so  very  much  mattered, 
since,  after  all,  for  intellectual  comradeship, 
she  was  entirely  supplied  and  satisfied  by  daily 
visits  from  so  thoughtful  and  sympathetic  a 
spirit  as  Albert  Yule.  As  June  wore  on, 
Harry  regained  his  wonted  activity,  and  the 
relations  of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Le  Grand  insensibly 
fell  back  into  their  accustomed  channel,  with 
merely  the  difference  of  an  added  cordiality  be- 
tween them,  but  emphatically  with  no  greater 


While  Others  May  Steal  a  Horse    233 

relish  for  one  another's  society.  In  regard  to 
Felix  Gwynne,  Alice  dimly  knew  a  faint  touch 
of  exasperation.  It  seemed  almost  puerile  in 
him  not  to  be  capable  of  adjusting  matters 
with  Adelaide.  Assuredly  no  one  knew  better 
than  herself  what  it  was  to  be  mated  with  a 
person  of  different  standards,  tastes,  and  views 
of  life;  but  the  wisdom  of  a  superior  being 
must  be  shown  in  accepting  and  accommodat- 
ing delicate  situations.  Compromise!  Ad- 
justment! that  was  the  law!  She  could  hardly 
blame  Felix  for  not  finding  every  want  of  his 
nature  satisfied  by  Adelaide,  but  she  plainly 
saw  how  easily  he  could  so  have  supplemented 
these  shortcomings  as  to  make  his  wife  reason- 
ably happy,  without  undue  sacrifice  of  personal 
liberty. 

This  she  wrote  at  length  to  Mrs.  Bradish 
Laurence,  alluding  in  discreet  terms  to  her 
own  case,  hinting  that  though  purely  as  a  hus- 
band Harry — did — there  had  been  rocks  in 
plenty  upon  which  she  might  have  split.  The 
entire  experience  of  matrimony  had  been  at- 


234       The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

tainable  through  him,  in  a  short  time.  After 
that,  little  remained  but  the  tie  of  a  child,  daily 
habit,  common  interests,  the  whole  practical 
side  of  life.  Beyond  that,  he  proved  as  inade- 
quate as  ever  Adelaide  could  be.  "What  do  I 
do?  Revolt,  make  demands  upon  my  poor 
husband  the  very  meaning  of  which  would  al- 
ways remain  dark  to  him?  Torment  him? 
By  no  means.  To  him  I  am  all  that  he  \vants 
in  a  wife,  and  for  my  necessary  intellectual 
companionship,  I  turn  to  an  old  and  trusted 
friend !"  Of  course  this  was  not  put  down  in 
black  and  white,  but  Alice's  thoughts,  in  trans- 
lation, would  have  read  somewhat  so. 

Old  Mrs.  Laurence's  answer,  however, 
needed  no  interpreter.  She  crudely  put  it  all 
into  words  .  .  .  "Your  letter,  my  dear  Alice, 
would  strike  me  as  revealing  depths  of 
depravity,  did  I  not  know  from  what  qualities 
it  really  proceeds.  You  think  that  you  under- 
stand Felix  and  Adelaide,  but  indeed  the 
stupid  Noels  themselves  come  nearer.  I  posi- 
tively must  explain.  The  truth  is  that  with  all 


While  Others  May  Steal  a  Horse    235 

her  prudery,  Adelaide  at  bottom  is  a  creature 
of  passion,  more  so  far  than  Felix.  That  is 
probably  because  her  passion  can  have  but  one 
outlet.  She,  poor  child,  whatever  her  faults,  is 
no  dilettante  in  life.  To  her,  tragic  or  happy, 
it  is  all  very  serious,  very  real.  Even  intimacy 
with  another  man  would  offend  her  taste.  All, 
or  nothing!  That  is  what  she  gives,  and  de- 
mands !  The  fact  is  that  her  passion  for  Felix 
is  so  absorbing  (only  she'd  never  know  it  by 
that  name),  that  she's  agonised  with  jealousy 
— of  you,  of  Rachel  Bernstein,  of  his  friend  the 
stenographer — Angela,  Albert,  his  own  writ- 
ing— heaven  help  her ! — of  me  with  one  foot  in 
the  grave !  And  it  is  this  very  genuineness  and 
concentration  that  made  her  attraction  for  Fe- 
lix. She  rang  true;  and  he,  in  his  widely  dif- 
fering way,  is  genuine  too,  utterly  so.  Only 
he  isn't  simple.  And  it's  being  their  own  life, 
and  their  caring,  that  prevents  either  of  them 
from  seeing  it  in  perspective.  They  can't  ad- 
just it,  poor  children,  because  they  are  living  it 
so  hard.  They,  either  one  of  them,  are  capa- 


236       The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

ble  of  tragedy,  Adelaide  more  so,  if  only  for 
the  reason  that  she  will  never  understand  what 
ails  her.     She  will  live  and  die  believing  that 
her  displeasure  was  on  high  moral  grounds,  as 
an  outraged  pillar  of  society,  when  it's  really 
the  primitive  woman  set  loose  by  Felix,  who 
rages    in    her    with    primitive    jealousy.      Of 
course  she  might  have  been  equal  to  sharing 
his  interests,  to  appreciating,  to  becoming  part 
of  him  with  her  mind,  as  well  as  her  body. 
You,  no  doubt,  could  have  done  so  to  a  nicety, 
as    you    are    very    truly    reflecting    at    this 
minute;  but  then,  my  dear  Alice,  only  think 
how  little  you  are  a  creature  of  intense,  con- 
centrated feeling !    If  you  were,  most  certainly 
Harry  would  have  to — go!     Or  perhaps  Al- 
bert.    Don't  misunderstand  me.     Don't  sup- 
pose me  vulgar  enough  to  mistake  your  very 
decorous  position.      Moreover,  if  it  came  to 
choosing,  I  really  believe  your  honest  prefer- 
ence would  be  for  Harry.     All  the  same,  you 
are  forever  hunting  up  the  kind  of  woman  he 
likes,  to  amuse  him,  and  give  you  leisure  for 


While  Others  May  Steal  a  Horse    237 

subtle  and  philosophic  discourse  with  Albert 
Yule  .  .  ." 

"Really,"  it  flashed  across  Mrs.  Le  Grand, 
"Cousin  Emily  is  rather  coarse  and  eighteenth- 
century,  at  times!"  But  behind  this  there 
lurked  in  the  younger  woman's  mind  a  sub- 
conscious knowledge  which  she  promptly  un- 
earthed, weighed,  assayed — a  recollection  of 
certain  dinners  with  Harry  beaming  down 
upon  Mrs.  Darling,  the  lady  almost  in  a  state 
of  nature,  as  to  raiment,  decidedly  remote  from 
nature  in  every  other  respect.  Alice  knew  that 
this  sight  caused  her  not  a  second's  annoy- 
ance, satisfaction  rather,  that  her  husband 
should  be  well  amused.  Also  on  seeing  the 
little  woman's  dilated  pupils  and  heady  spirits, 
she  had  indeed  felt  a  mild  wonder  that  even 
Mrs.  Darling  should  find  wherewithal  in 
Harry  to  arouse  such  interest.  Decidedly  the 
spectacle  evoked  no  such  primitive  passion  as 
jealousy. 

"No,  my  dear,"  the  old  lady  ended.    "Go  on 
with  your  highly  discreet  menage  a  trois.     No 


238        The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

one  could  possibly  object  to  it;  it  is  absolutely 
intrinsically,  bloodlessly  innocuous.  But  don't 
blame  Felix  and  Adelaide  for  not  being  able  to 
go  and  do  likewise.  Whatever  their  faults, 
they  both  are  as  good  as  the  angels,  in  being 
true,  in  never  tampering  with  so  sacred  a  thing 
as  life.  They  are  not  amateurs!  Adelaide 
will  sacrifice  heaven  and  earth  without  falter- 
ing. Felix  is  capable  of  crashing  through 
every  tie  that  ought  to  hold  him,  but  both  of 
them  stake  all  they  possess,  no  thrifty  econ- 
omy. Only,  of  course,  it  is  most  unfortunate 
that  they  ever  met."  After  this  perfectly  vir- 
tuous tirade,  the  old  lady  wound  up  with  a 
frank  expression  of  curiosity  concerning  the 
moral,  physical,  and  emotional  characteristics 
of  Miss  Nina  Breame! 


CHAPTER  XVI 
ttbe  1)t0broa£>  to  ffame 

THE  only  account  of  Nina's  misadventure 
reached  her  brother  in  a  letter  from  the 
girl  herself.  Knowing  that  Rupert  seldom 
read  a  daily  paper,  she  hastened  to  write  him  at 
length  of  her  gipsy  episode,  touching  lightly 
on  the  fact  that  she  had  been  annoyed  by  a  cer- 
tain amount  of  publicity,  and  entirely  ignoring 
her  landlady's  insulting  treatment.  Rupert's 
convalescence  had  been  slow;  only  after  many 
weeks  at  the  quiet  little  watering-place,  did  he 
feel  hopes  of  regaining  sufficient  vigour  to 
think  remotely  of  work.  Long  Beach  was  in 
process  of  transition  from  natural  fishing  vil- 
lage to  established  resort,  but  during  June 
summer  people  had  not  yet  come  in  any  num- 
ber, and  the  small  hotel  boasted  so  few  visitors 
that  by  no  chance  could  a  new  arrival  pass  un- 
239 


240       The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

noticed,  even  by  Rupert,  whose  self-commun- 
ion was  usually  so  absorbing  as  to  leave  him 
quite  insensitive  to  outward  impressions. 
Driven  by  what  he  felt  to  be  a  disgusting  ne- 
cessity into  work  of  a  commercial  order,  his 
artist's  spirit  only  took  pleasure  in  nebulous 
renderings  of  highly  symbolic  aspects  of  na- 
ture. In  fact,  although  undeniable  talent  had 
already  given  him  a  creditable  footing  in  his 
profession,  Rupert  openly  bewailed  the  wither- 
ing limitations  of  his  field.  A  shadow,  a  cloud 
effect,  the  detail  of  a  gnarled  oak-root,  these  to 
him  seemed  far  more  fitting  illustration  for 
any  miserable  story  than  the  "human  interest" 
which  all  art  editors  insist  upon  having  ex- 
pressed through  the  literal  medium  of  human 
figures.  Humanity  was  one  of  the  many 
things  which  Rupert  found  equally  and  tire- 
somely  irrelevant  in  art  or  nature. 

Notwithstanding  this  lack  of  impulse  to- 
wards his  kind,  Rupert  felt  his  interest  forcibly 
held  by  a  lady  who  made  her  appearance  at  the 
hotel  towards  the  middle  of  June.  She  kept 


The  Highroad  to  Fame        241 

entirely  to  herself,  walking  or  driving  with  an 
old  woman  unmistakably  bearing  the  stamp  of 
privileged  family  servant.  This  young  lady 
was  beautiful,  distinguished,  and  immensely 
sad.  Although  Rupert  seldom  cared  to  use 
them,  he  had  come  into  the  world  with  a  pair 
of  sharply  seeing  eyes.  Perversity  might  lead 
him  to  wear  blinkers,  but  once  his  attention 
roused,  real  capacity  enabled  him  to  see,  also 
to  apprehend,  situations  far  beyond  the  range 
of  his  personal  experience.  He  put  the 
stranger  down  as  a  young,  heart-broken 
widow,  but  suspended  judgment  on  noticing 
that  she  bore  no  sign  of  widow's  weeds,  not 
even  the  lightest  black.  Then  slowly  he  di- 
vined in  her  attitude  a  hint  of  inward  struggle ; 
he  speculated  idly  on  the  stranger's  problem, 
vaguely  working  out  many  theories  to  account 
for  the  isolation  of  so  evident  a  mondaine,  and 
trying  to  trace  an  unhappiness  which  no  re- 
serve of  bearing  could  hide  from  every  passer- 
by. 

Strolling  through  a  desert  of  white  sand- 


242        The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

dunes  topped  with  pale,  rustling  grasses,  he 
came  unexpectedly  upon  the  lady.  Her  whole 
pose  expressed  such  melancholy  that  the  lad 
at  once  hastened  along  his  way,  with  a  sense 
of  having  unfairly  surprised  her,  peeped  when 
her  guard  was  down.  One  gloved  hand  lay 
loosely  on  her  lap,  the  other  still  held  a  book 
which  she  had  ceased  to  read;  with  blue  eyes 
that  saw  nothing,  she  followed  the  white  sail 
of  a  schooner  vanishing  below  the  far  horizon. 
A  gentle  breeze,  salt  from  the  open  sea,  played 
in  the  folds  of  her  silken  veil.  Queer  little  am- 
bulant birds  with  long  thin  legs,  grey  and 
white  as  the  sand,  ran  to  and  fro  on  the  dunes, 
almost  stepping  upon  the  hem  of  her  dress, 
then  suddenly  aware  of  a  human  presence,  rose 
with  a  hoarse  chirp  and  made  off  on  crooked, 
pointed  wings.  How  quiet  she  was,  and  grief- 
stricken  !  What  did  she  suggest :  some  un- 
happy princess  of  romance?  Ariadne,  was  that 
it?  Confusedly  the  lad's  mind  went  back  to 
half-forgotten  studies.  No,  hardly  Ariadne. 
Under  no  circumstances  would  this  controlled 


The  Highroad  to  Fame        243 

lady  have  waded  into  the  waves  and  cast  out- 
spoken woes  upon  the  unsympathetic  air.  This 
one  would  bear  her  pain  in  silence,  and  never, 
never  on  earth  would  she  allow  Bacchus  to 
console  her;  Apollo  himself  might  sue  in  vain. 
At  this  point  in  his  reverie,  Rupert  felt  prick- 
ings of  an  artist's  desire  to  seize  and  carry 
away  a  further  impression  of  her  proud  and 
graceful  outlines.  Stiff!  Yes,  a  trifle,  but 
adorably  so !  Our  young  man  was  no  admirer 
of  the  sinuous  girl-student,  with  her  odd 
clothes  and  untidy  coiffure.  In  people,  he  was 
a  purist,  a  raffine,  a  creature  of  civilised  taste. 
After  debating  the  question,  he  finally  decided 
that  on  a  public  thoroughfare  there  could  be  no 
breach  of  etiquette  in  again  strolling  past  the 
solitary  figure. 

This  time,  however,  she  was  no  longer  alone 
but  in  evidently  unwelcome  company.  A 
thick-set,  motherly  person  stood  over  her,  and 
uttered  words  of  indignant  remonstrance. 

"Indeed,  Mrs.  Gwynne,  I  do  not  think  you 
should  say  that.  How  can  it  be  impertinence 


244       The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

of  the  Earth  to  send  me  to  ask  you?  A  cul- 
tured social  equal,  not  just  any  heartless  man 
reporter!" 

Mrs.  Gwynne's  delicate  profile,  her  cold  blue 
eyes,  and  slightly  compressed  lips  plainly 
warned  off  the  intruder.  "My  opinions  and 
intentions  are  quite  unaltered,"  she  breathed, 
with  icy  clearness,  and  turned  to  her  book  with 
an  air  of  immutable  resolve.  The  cultured 
equal  here  tried  a  different  method.  "And  it's 
very  cruel,  too,  of  a  wealthy  person  like  you,  to 
deny  opportunity  to  a  sister  woman  who  is  try- 
ing her  best  to  earn  a  refined  living." 

Without  looking  up,  Adelaide  quietly  asked, 
"If  you  want  charity,  why  not  say  so?" 

The  woman  flushed.  "Because  I  am  in  re- 
stricted circumstances  is  no  reason  you  should 
insult  me." 

Without  a  word,  Adelaide  read  to  the  bot- 
tom of  a  page,  began  a  fresh  chapter  .  .  . 

"Well,"  the  journalist  felt  at  an  obvious  dis- 
advantage before  such  trained  composure,  "at 
least  you  might  tell  me  where  to  find  Mr. 


The  Highroad  to  Fame        245 

Rupert  Braeme.  They  said  at  the  hotel  that  he 
often  walked  down  this  way  ..." 

This  Rupert  deemed  his  legitimate  chance 
to  rescue  Mrs.  Gwynne.  Coming  from  behind 
a  sand  dune,  he  asked,  "You  are  looking  for 
me?"  Involuntarilly  Mrs.  Gwynne  glanced 
up.  He  raised  his  hat,  but  her  head  made  no 
inclination.  She  utterly  disliked  his  looks,  he 
savoured  of  the  world  in  which  she  had  known 
only  misery;  also,  his  name  was  Braeme. 
That  he  had  come  to  her  aid,  without  regard 
to  a  distaste  surprisingly  akin  to  her  own, 
never  suggested  itself  as  a  possibility.  There- 
fore it  was  with  a  sense  of  intolerable  per- 
secution that  she  read  a  note  which  Effie 
brought  to  her  room  late  that  afternoon.  In 
a  writing  disordered  by  excitement,  Rubert 
fairly  demanded  a  word  with  her  after 
supper. 

"He  just  insisted  on  my  bringing  it  to  you," 
Effie  explained.  "And  I  never  saw  a  person 
worse  upset,  white  and  shaking  so  he  could 
hardly  stand.  Shaking  all  over." 


246       The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

"Go  at  once  and  tell  him  that  I  see  no  one !" 
Adelaide's  tone  blotted  out  Rupert's  entire  ex- 
istence. But  to  her  extreme  anger,  after  the 
evening  meal,  she  was  waylaid  on  the  stairs  by 
the  young  man  himself  in  a  state  of  agitation 
which  actually  compelled  attention. 

He  seemed  on  the  verge  of  tears,  speaking 
in  turn  with  youthful  bombast  and  hysterical 
complaint.  Till  enlightened  by  the  Earth's 
cultured  agent,  he  had  no  conception  of  any 
scandal  concerning  his  sister  and  Mr.  Gwynne. 
Of  course,  Nina  must  be  harshly  blamed  for 
such  a  madcap  performance.  He  himself 
would  take  her  to  task.  ...  At  this  there 
was  an  assumption  of  masculine  authority, 
pitiful  enough,  if  Adelaide  had  but  understood 
the  physical  weakness  of  a  person  not  wholly 
recovered  from  desperate  illness.  As  it  was, 
she  only  resented  the  coupling  of  herself  with 
any  of  that  odious  crew.  Could  he  actually 
be  urging  that  Mrs.  Gwynne  must  surely 
be  able  to  devise  some  way  of  righting 
matters  ? 


The  Highroad  to  Fame        247 

To  save  her  life,  Adelaide  could  not  repress 
a  thrill  of  comfort  at  the  boy's  evident  belief  in 
his  sister,  but  the  comfort  vanished  in  outraged 
distaste.  After  all,  as  far  as  Felix  was  con- 
cerned, it  was  only  a  question  of  degree.  His 
lack  of  dignity  and  propriety,  masquerading 
about  the  world  in  equivocal  positions,  brought 
her  pure  and  sheltered  existence  in  contact 
with  prying  reporters,  subjected  her  to  scenes 
in  public  places.  Things  as  remote  as  petty 
larceny  or  vulgar  brawls  were  grown  part  and 
parcel  of  her  daily  life !  To  keep  her  husband, 
she,  Adelaide  Noel,  must  needs  share  him  with 
vagabonds  and  worse,  bear  his  so  contriving 
that  their  affairs  should  become  public  talk,  till 
she  could  nowhere  find  decent  privacy.  In  this 
one  day  she  had  been  asked  by  strangers  ques- 
tions which  even  her  parents  hesitated  to  utter. 
"Kindly  let  me  pass!"  She  did  not  even  look 
at  the  lad.  "Really,  I  see  no  part  for  me  in  the 
troubles  of  Miss  Braeme." 

Rupert  stood  aside,  giving  her  the  rail,  but 
as  she  reached  the  landing  above,  the  sound  of 


248       The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

a  bump,  another,  several,  then  a  thud,  brought 
her  quickly  back. 

Rupert  had  fainted  and  fallen  downstairs. 

If  Adelaide  felt  herself  driven  by  Fate  into 
company  she  had  every  wish  to  avoid,  at  least 
there  was  no  moment  of  hesitation  in  going  to 
aid  the  prostrate  figure  lying  motionless  in  the 
hall  below ;  and  as  under  joint  ministrations 
of  herself,  Effie,  and  their  landlord  the  boy 
slowly  opened  his  eyes,  she  saw  with  self-re- 
proach that  her  anger  had  turned  upon  a  per- 
son whose  state  of  health  might  well  call  for 
gentler  dealing. 

Rupert,  however,  would  have  none  of  her 
good  offices. 

"But  you  will  see  a  doctor?"  she  asked  .  .  . 
"Or  at  least  let  my  maid  help  you  to  your 
room?" 

He  was  standing  now,  though  painfully,  and 
met  this  suggestion  with  an  unconscious  exag- 
geration of  Adelaide's  own  repellent  manner. 

"Thanks,  but  really,  I  see  no  part  for  you 


The  Highroad  to  Fame        249 

in  my  affairs,  Mrs.  Gwynne."  He  took  a  few 
steps  slowly,  his  hand  pressed  to  his  side. 

Following  him,  Adelaide  even  laid  a  detain- 
ing finger  on  his  sleeve.  "Please,  you  know  I 
am  partially  responsible  for  your  accident." 

He  turned  a  white  face  towards  her,  and 
spoke  for  her  alone.  "Mrs.  Gwynne,  that  wom- 
an said  you  had  left  your  husband  on  account 
of  my  sister.  Is  that  also  your  view  of  it?" 

"I  can't  see  that  you  have  a  right  to  ask  me," 
Adelaide  answered,  thoughtfully,  temperately. 

"Oh,  yes,  I  have,  the  best."  The  long 
breath  he  drew  to  inflate  his  dignity  only 
brought  a  pitiful  contraction  of  physical  pain. 
"As  Nina's  sole  protector,  I'm  bound  to  know 
just  how  matters  stand.  And  your  taking  this 
view  of  it" — here  the  frown  came  from  anger 
as  well  as  suffering — "what  you  have  not  said, 
as  plain  as  anything  you  could  say,  shows  that 
the  person  for  me  to  see  is  Mr.  Gwynne.  This 
is  no  matter  for  women.  I  beg  your  pardon." 
The  boy  over-dramatised  his  role,  he  was  self- 
conscious,  more  than  a  little  ridiculous,  but 


250       The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

under  it  Adelaide  now  saw  and  respected 
genuine  distress ;  also  he  was  ill ! 

The  physical  side  gave  her  a  basis  on  which 
to  meet  him.  "But  you  must  not  try  to  see  any 
one  until  you  are  better.  Stay  here  and  let  my 
maid  see  to  you.  She's  a  good  crea- 
ture .  .  ." 

Here  Rupert  threw  up  his  handsome  head  in 
dissent.  "Women  do  not  quite  understand  these 
things,  Mrs.  Gwynne.  How  can  you  and  I 
stop  under  the  same  roof,  after  you  have  made 
it  plain  that  my  sister  is  your  husband's  mis- 
tress?" 

Early  the  next  day,  Effie  brought  word  that 
Mr.  Braeme  had  already  left  by  the  first  train. 

Forgetting  that  Nina  was  no  longer  in  New 
York,  Rupert  decided  to  go  there  at  once,  and 
demand  from  his  sister  a  full  confession  of  her 
relations  with  Felix  Gwynne.  Then  it  would 
be  time  for  action.  He  lay  back  comfortlessly 
in  the  car  seat,  trying  in  vain  to  ease  a  steadily 
growing  pain  in  his  injured  side.  By  the  time 


The  Highroad  to  Fame        251 

the  train  reached  Jersey  City,  to  his  chagrin  he 
was  quite  unable  to  straighten  his  legs,  or 
stand  up.  Then  there  followed  a  nightmare, 
in  which  anguish  of  body  slowly  befogged 
every  other  sense.  To  get  back  to  the  hospital, 
this  became  his  only  fixed  point!  A  porter 
wheeled  him  to  the  ferry-boat.  He  lay  doubled 
up  on  a  bench  in  the  waiting  room,  they  had 
carried  him  to  a  cab.  Oh !  the  rough  pave- 
ments, and  his  hospital  was  miles  and  miles 
away.  Long  before  the  drive  was  over,  he  had 
lapsed  from  consciousness. 

"What  have  you  been  doing,  young  man?" 
At  last  he  lay  relaxed  and  at  ease,  stretched 
out  on  the  very  cot  where  he  had  already  spent 
so  many  weary  weeks.  Pain  was  there,  but  in 
the  background,  subdued,  not  conquered.  The 
tall  surgeon  questioned  lightly  with  an  inci- 
dental air.  A  white-clad  nurse  stood  at  the 
foot  of  his  bed ;  in  the  doorway  a  pretty  girl  in 
probationer's  blue  waited  her  chief's  com- 
mands. House  doctors,  students,  hung  on  the 
great  man's  words.  It  was  the  morning 


252       The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

round,  he  must  have  been  there  many  hours. 
Rupert  felt  that  if  all  power  of  action  had  for- 
ever left  him,  he  must  at  least  keep  guard  over 
a  sick  man's  garrulity. 

"Been  playing  football  with  yourself?"  Dr. 
Browne  knew  the  use  of  stereotyped  humour. 

"No,"  Rupert  answered,  fumbling  through 
weakness,  then  simply  told  the  truth.  "I 
fainted  on  the  stairs  and  fell." 

Then  followed  endless  unwinding  of  band- 
ages, and  delicate  manipulation  of  his  damaged 
side.  The  chief,  the  house  surgeon,  and  a 
young  assistant  all  bent  over  his  bed,  keeping 
up  a  running  fire  of  cheerful  talk,  punctuated 
by  a  rare  grunt  of  serious  comment. 

"Looks  like  it !" 

"May  be  the  best  thing  that  could  have  hap- 
pened." 

In  the  end,  Rupert  gathered  that  his  fall  had 
torn  out  some  stitches  where  the  wound  from 
his  operation  was  still  weak.  They  assured 
him  that,  strange  to  say,  the  accident  was  sus- 
pected of  having  broken  down  some  trouble- 


The  Highroad  to  Fame        253 

some  adhesions,  but  an  exploratory  incision 
would  "be  necessary.  He  might  expect  a  more 
perfect  cure,  eventually;  meanwhile  it  threat- 
ened to  be  just  a  trifle  slow. 

"I  must  see  my  sister,  on  business,  at  once," 
Rupert  interrupted. 

But  this  was  precisely  what  Dr.  Browne 
would  not  permit.  On  learning  that  Miss 
Braeme  had  left  town,  he  privately  sent  a 
letter  urging  her  to  leave  Rupert  undisturbed. 
There  had  been  something  not  quite  clear  in 
the  boy's  story  of  his  accident.  Why,  for 
instance,  had  he  fainted?  And  taking  this  in 
connection  with  the  widespread  newspaper 
scandal  and  his  evident  impatience  to  see  Nina, 
the  wise  doctor  concluded  to  spare  his  waning 
strength  an  interview  which  could  only  be 
taxing.  Moreover,  there  was  imperative  need 
for  prompt  operation,  and  experience  had  long 
established  the  fact  that  after  ether,  and  hours 
of  thirst,  surgical  patients  easily  lose  interest 
in  all  affairs  beyond  their  own  beds  and  bed- 
sides. 


254       The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

On  reading  the  letter  which  Dr.  Browne 
himself  found  time  to  write  her,  Nina  inclined 
to  drop  rehearsals,  to  let  everything  go,  for  the 
sake  of  being  near  her  brother,  but  the  com- 
mand was  very  definite.  Without  giving  any 
reason,  the  surgeon's  note  made  plain  not  only 
that  her  brother  was  in  no  need  of  her,  but  that 
it  would  be  well  to  avoid  all  disturbing  visits. 

Nina  was  established  in  a  small  apartment 
of  Mr.  Quorn's  choosing.  She  had  rather  de- 
murred at  the  expense,  a  cheap  boarding  house 
was  all  she  could  afford.  But  the  manager 
pointed  out  that  as  she  must  stay  the  summer 
through  in  a  hot  town,  a  certain  degree  of 
comfort  meant  strength  and  good  looks  for  the 
winter's  work.  A  few  dollars  a  week  more  or 
less  could  make  little  difference  in  a  debt  al- 
ready large,  and  the  strain  of  squalid  discom- 
fort would  certainly  impair  her  chance  of  suc- 
cess. 

During  this  time,  Felix  occasionally  wrote 
letters  which  she  read  and  re-read.  Their  sub- 
stance was  always  the  same.  He  would  stay 


The  Highroad  to  Fame        255 

at  Chastellux,  within  an  hour's  call,  at  her  ser- 
vice. She  must  feel  that  he  was  there  to  de- 
pend on  in  every  possible  way.  He  believed 
that  now,  though  nothing  could  be  less  to  his 
taste,  it  would  be  wiser  for  them  not  to  meet;  it 
would  only  hurt  her  further.  This  was 
touched  with  lightness.  He  passed  on  quickly 
to  the  play — she  must  write  him  how  it  went. 

In  the  growing  summer  heat  and  long  days 
of  effort  and  fatigue,  these  infrequent  letters 
filled  a  great  space.  Since  the  gipsy  episode 
Nina  lived  much  to  herself,  her  whole  position 
seemed  to  have  undergone  a  change.  She 
could  lay  a  ringer  on  no  positive  token  of  dis- 
respect, rather  it  was  that  she  now  inspired  a 
keener  interest;  but  from  the  call  boy  up,  she 
met  with  indefinably  altered  treatment.  Here- 
tofore, at  the  theatre,  she  had  always  been 
something  of  an  outsider.  Now,  not  only  did 
she  entirely  belong,  but  she  had  become  a  char- 
acter of  public  notoriety.  And  this  was  all  the 
more  trying,  since  owing  to  a  migratory  child- 
hood, followed  by  a  period  of  hard  study,  the 


256       The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

girl  stood  singularly  without  friends.  The 
long  June  evenings  were  increasingly  depress- 
ing. Even  in  town  the  sweetness  of  summer 
could  not  be  fully  obliterated,  there  was  just 
enough  to  hint  at  pleasures  ready  to  be  en- 
joyed. 

Why,  only  to-night,  she  reflected,  tossing 
aside  a  book  which  entirely  failed  to  divert  her, 
the  others  were  off  dining,  in  the  country, 
under  trees,  with  music.  The  trim,  clean- 
shaven leading  man,  Percy  Planter,  had  be- 
sought her,  in  his  mellowest  tones,  not  to  mew 
herself  up  forever.  If  she  objected  to  dining 
with  the  Company,  he  would  be  only  too  glad 
to  leave  them,  for  her  sake.  Or  might  he 
come  for  her  after  dinner,  at  eight?  There 
were  places  where  one  could  spend  a  pleasant 
hour. 

Nina  had  refused  this,  in  spite  of  a  half-jok- 
ing remonstrance  from  Mr.  Quorn,  who  joined 
them  at  the  stage  door  and  walked  part  way 
home  with  her,  to  Percy's  obvious  disgust. 
The  manager  felt  grieved  that  Miss  Braeme 


The  Highroad  to  Fame       257 

should  take  a  mere  trifle  of  newspaper  celebrity 
so  much  to  heart.  A  little  amusement  would 
do  her  good,  she  was  growing  morbid. 

At  the  time  she  had  declined  with  unflag- 
ging obstinacy,  but  now,  the  evening  seemed 
long.  Morbid?  Perhaps  she  might  be,  but 
then  the  leading  gentleman,  polite  as  he  was, 
had  a  distasteful  way,  in  the  exercise  of  a  pro- 
fessional habit  of  fascination,  of  pinning  his 
eyes  upon  her.  She  hoped  it  might  be  purely 
professional ! 

With  a  sense  of  yielding  to  secret  dissipa- 
tion, she  took  Felix's  last  letter  from  her  sec- 
retary. It  was  full  of  a  device  Rachel  Bern- 
stein had  shown  him,  a  method  of  emphasis- 
ing, without  caricaturing  simple  gestures,  of 
making  them  stand  out.  Then  he  branched  off 
and  described  the  great  actress,  with  humour, 
appreciation,  and  perfectly  uncritical  accept- 
ance of  her  manner  of  life.  Of  her  heaven- 
sent gift  and  the  intelligence  controlling  it,  he 
spoke  with  serious  admiration.  There  was 
also  a  word  of  regret  at  missing  his  own  fan- 


258       The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

tasy,  which  even  now,  she  was  bringing  out  in 
her  own  Paris  house.  Not  a  line  throughout 
that  might  not  have  been  passed  approvingly 
by  Mrs.  Noel  in  solemn  family  conclave! 

Poor  Nina  yawned  and  stretched  her  pretty, 
weary  person,  finally  subsiding,  discouraged, 
in  an  over-upholstered  armchair.  After  all 
there  might  be  solid  satisfaction,  but  certainly 
she  found  scant  enjoyment  in  a  youth  of 
drudgery  and  discretion.  She  had  no  illusions 
as  to  her  talent,  in  comparison  with  Rachel 
Bernstein's.  Unrelieved  effort  and  respectable 
mediocrity,  she  knew  her  legitimate  limita- 
tions; although  for  many  years,  the  easier 
paths  of  her  profession — the  potency  of  good 
looks  cleverly  exploited — had  been  constantly 
held  before  her  as  an  ever-present  temptation. 

A  ring  at  the  bell!  She  glanced  at  her 
watch.  It  might  be  Percy,  after  all.  Was  she 
not  silly  to  refuse?  Considering  that  business 
compelled  her  to  undergo  a  warm  embrace  at 
least  twice  in  every  performance,  wasn't  it  far- 
fetched to  deny  him  an  ordinary  degree  of  in- 


The  Highroad  to  Fame        259 

timacy  between  whiles?  If  the  play  had  the 
run  they  were  all  praying  for — well,  it  really 
seemed  fantastic  to  refuse  an  hour's  jaunt  to  a 
person  whom  you  hoped  would  have  occasion 
to  embrace  you  at  least  one  hundred-and-eighty 
times  before  New  Year's ! 

Thrusting  away  Felix's  letter,  she  opened 
the  door.  Not  Mr.  Planter,  but  a  rough  ish- 
looking  man  with  a  suggestion  of  uniform 
lurking  indefinably  about  his  clothes,  in  his 
cap  perhaps,  or  was  there  a  brass  button? 
She  hardly  knew,  but  his  appearance  struck 
her  excited  nerves  as  sinister.  A  dun?  But 
she  owed  money  to  no  one  but  Mr.  Quorn. 
Yet  the  stranger  held  an  ugly,  official  envelope. 

"Miss  Nina  Braeme?"  he  asked. 

"What  has  happened?"  Her  mind  flew  to 
Rupert.  Could  he  be  in  any  fresh  trouble? 

"Don't  be  uneasy,  miss."  The  stranger's 
manner  grew  positively  chivalrous.  "Ladies 
are  always  shy  on  their  first  summons,  but  it's 
nothing  a  child  need  mind.  Only  as  wit- 
ness .  ." 


260       The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

Nina  unfolded  the  paper,  and  with  a  "Good- 
evening"  he  turned  to  go.  "But  wait,  please," 
she  begged.  "Suppose  I  don't  understand 
what  to  do?" 

"All  right,  miss!"  He  good-humouredly 
stopped.  "Such  a  hunt  as  I  had  for  you.  At 
the  theatre,  that  bright  boy  in  the  box  office 
said  he  didn't  know  where  you  lodged,  but  a 
young  fellow  from  the  News  put  me  wise." 

Having  found  her  wits,  Nina  skimmed  over 
the  summons.  She  was  to  appear  at  the  Mount 
Laurel  court,  on  Tuesday  following,  in  the 
case  of  Costello  versus  Cooper.  "Oh,  but  I 
can't,  you  know.  I'm  too  busy,  be- 
side ..."  She  appealed  to  the  messenger. 

"They  always  say  that,  but  you  needn't 
mind,  miss.  It  only  takes  an  hour  to  get  there, 
less  by  a  quick  train,  and  in  the  long  run,  it'll 
give  you  more  trouble  to  dodge  than  to  come. 
They  can  make  you,  you  know." 

This  seemed  to  Nina  the  very  last  stone  in 
the  sling  of  Fate.  More  newspaper,  more 
blazoning  abroad  of  her  adventures,  and  at 


The  Highroad  to  Fame       261 

this  she  became  conscious  of  a  new  factor.  Her 
pulse  was  beating  quicker,  she  no  longer  felt 
tired  and  disheartened.  The  summer  air  was 
balmy,  a  jingle  of  distant  hand-organs  floated 
agreeably  in  at  the  open  window.  To-day  was 
Thursday,  and  if,  as  the  messenger  said,  there 
should  be  no  way  of  dodging  this  vexing  sum- 
mons— why,  then,  she  had  only  to  wait  in  pa- 
tience a  few  days  .  .  . 

Morning  had  almost  come  before  she  fell 
asleep,  only  to  wake  early  with  a  start,  a  vague 
sense  that  something  had  happened  to  make 
life  bearable.  Not  that  she  expected  him  to 
speak  to  her,  but  there  was  no  denying  im- 
measurable solace  in  the  prospect  of  catching, 
even  across  a  crowded  court-room,  the  merest 
distant  glimpse  of  her  fellow  culprit.  Try  as 
she  might,  the  whole  day  long  Nina  went 
about  her  work  with  her  mind  filled  with  the 
thought  of  again  meeting  Felix  Gwynne! 


CHAPTER  XVII 
21  Cribe  of  Ouar&fan  Bngels 

BEFORE  the  trial  came  on,  Nina  again 
heard  from  Felix.  He  had  used  every 
influence  to  delay  the  case,  to  avoid  her  being 
summoned ;  but  the  country  court  was  obsti- 
nate. Cooper  pressed  his  suit,  Mrs.  Costello's 
lawyer  likewise  urged  speedy  settlement.  Per- 
haps Mr.  Quorn  could  manage  to  get  her  off. 

Conscious  of  a  weak  play,  and  finding  Nina 
much  too  squeamish  for  a  young  lady  who 
voluntarily  went  gipsying,  Mr.  Quorn,  on  the 
contrary,  viewed  the  trial  as  one  more  piece  of 
rare  luck,  something  beyond  the  most  inspired 
imagination  of  advertising  agents. 

"Now  don't  worry  about  missing  a  re- 
hearsal, Miss  Braeme."  Actually  the  manager 
let  slip  a  compliment.  "You're  better  already 

than  any  of  them,  and  a  day  off  will  keep  you 
262 


A  Tribe  of  Guardian  Angels   263 

from  getting  stale.  Have  your  eyes  open,  too. 
Watch  how  it  all  works  out.  Some  of  these 
days  you  may  need  to  know  how  a  court 
scene  goes." 

Being  after  all  of  only  human  discretion, 
though  dressing  with  fitting  quiet,  Nina  could 
not  resist  her  best  hat  and  most  becoming 
frock.  He  had  never  seen  her  in  proper 
clothes.  Was  it  her  fault  if  the  hat  were 
pretty  ? 

Mr.  Ouorn  sent  Percy  Planter  (so  at  least 
the  latter  affirmed)  to  bear  her  company  across 
the  ferry.  "Wish  I  could  see  you  through." 
Percy  bestowed  upon  her  candy,  flowers, 
books,  and  a  Japanese  fan.  "But  the  old  man 
won't  let  me  off  a  whole  day." 

"You  are  very  kind."  Secretly,  Nina  felt 
thankful  to  Mr.  Quorn.  So  far  in  her  career, 
she  had  clung  desperately  to  the  idea  of  mod- 
est success,  honest  endeavour,  and  endless  dis- 
cretion. But  now,  who  could  tell?  By  next 
year  she  might  be  like  the  others,  good  girls, 
no  doubt,  but  well-emancipated  from  hamper- 


264       The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

ing  refinements  and  scruples.  To-day  at  least, 
she  certainly  had  small  desire  for  the  showy 
escort  of  Mr.  Percy  Planter. 

"You  are  looking  remarkably  fit,  I  must 
say."  The  young  man  detained  her  on  the  car 
platform.  "Fetching  things  you  have  on.  Do 
you  know,  Miss  Braeme,  every  different  dress 
you  come  out  in,  I  always  feel  that  is  the  only 
kind  of  thing  you  should  ever  wear !" 

Nina  looked  straight  into  the  eyes  which 
were  fixing  hers  with  an  intensity  not  wholly 
professional.  Not  wholly !  Why,  the  boy  was 
really  making  love  to  her !  This  she  saw  with 
an  irritation  which  found  no  outlet  in  words, 
till  he  unwisely  said,  with  lover-like  inflec- 
tions : 

"And  I'd  like  to  be  there  too,  to  look  after 
you,  Miss  Braeme;  to  be  sure  that  Mr.  Felix 
Gwynne  doesn't  get  you  into  any  more 
scrapes  .  .  ."  The  actor's  over-expressive  face 
darkened. 

The  conductor  was  calling  "all  aboard." 
"Listen,  Mr.  Planter,"  Nina  spoke  abruptly. 


A  Tribe  of  Guardian  Angels    265 

"If  you  are  doing  all  this  from  politeness,  pray 
spare  yourself  the  trouble,  I  don't  like  it.  If 
it's  anything  more  than  politeness,  I  like  it 
even  less."  Burthened  with  his  gifts,  Nina 
settled  herself  in  the  train,  reflecting  with  a 
very  rueful  humour  that  with  Rupert,  Mr. 
Quorn,  Felix,  and  Percy  Planter  all  bent  on 
protecting  her,  any  young  woman  stood  an  ex- 
cellent chance  of  being  carried  far  beyond  the 
need  of  sheltering  wings.  But  in  this  tribe  of 
guardian  angels  she  soon  discovered  another, 
more  aggressive  and,  if  possible,  more  damag- 
ing. 

Seth  Williams,  her  gipsy  host,  had  reached 
conclusions  of  his  own  as  to  the  relation  of 
Felix  and  Nina.  Their  reticence  about  Rhoda 
Costello  had  earned  his  undying  gratitude, 
therefore  he  came  to  court  resolved  to  miss  no 
chance  of  doing  the  pair  a  good  turn.  This 
general  benevolence,  however,  was  destined  by 
the  morning's  events  to  be  diverted  from  Felix 
to  Nina  alone. 

Marshal  and  Deputy  Marshal  rounded  up 


266       The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

the  gipsies  in  an  indiscriminate  mob,  regard- 
less of  fiery  glances  exchanged  by  hostile  fac- 
tions. Old  Mrs.  Lovel  had  honoured  the  day 
with  a  wide-rimmed  Leghorn  hat  adorned 
with  brilliant  paper  roses,  from  under  which 
her  red  eyes  peered  out  watchfully.  Nina 
thought  she  looked  singularly  unlike  an  effi- 
cient chaperon  for  errant  actresses.  Henri- 
etta Cooper  wore  a  bright  satin  waist  trimmed 
with  black  lace,  many  rings,  and  a  quasi-Span- 
ish arrangement  of  plastered  black  hair,  her 
best  attire  of  calculated  disreputableness,  ha- 
bitually assumed  for  county  fairs  and  all  pub- 
lic occasions.  Some  of  the  men  carried  their 
small  whips,  and  proceedings  were  constantly 
broken  in  upon  by  eruptions  from  without  of 
dogs  and  children. 

Reporters  from  town  rejoiced  in  a  pictur- 
esque "story,"  while  the  country  contingent 
felt  only  mortification  at  being  forced  to  take 
seriously  anything  so  preposterous  as  a  gipsy 
lawsuit.  The  Marshals  facetiously  "guessed" 
that  by  next  circuit  the  cows  and  pigs  would 


A  Tribe  of  Guardian  Angels    267 

be  suing  each  other,  and  setting  up  bank  ac- 
counts. 

"Let  me  sit  by  old  Mrs.  Lovel,  please,"  Nina 
whispered  to  a  man  at  the  door.  On  the 
whole,  that  seemed  her  fittest  niche. 

"Well,  miss,  but  your  place  has  been  as- 
signed just  here."  The  pompous  countryman 
deposited  her  on  a  bench  close  by  Felix,  and  a 
lightning-artist  at  once  began  to  sketch  in 
their  joint  portrait.  Seeing  Nina's  colour  rise, 
Felix  greeted  her  with  extreme  formality,  and 
devoted  all  his  attention  to  studying  judge  and 
jury.  This  evident  coldness  did  not  escape 
Seth  Williams.  His  impenetrable,  slanting 
eyes  took  in  the  whole  scene,  and  he  read  the 
situation  plainly.  Having  got  Miss  Braeme 
into  a  scrape,  Mr.  Gwynne  showed  signs  of  not 
standing  by  her.  "He  wants  to  shake  her," 
was  Seth's  interpretation  of  this  considerate 
restraint.  "Never  mind!"  When  his  chance 
came,  he  would  certainly  proclaim  Nina's 
rights  over  Felix,  in  open  court. 

Special  Officer  Brady  was  on  hand,  also  the 


268       The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

weather-wise  bank-cashier,  the  steamboat  cap- 
tain. All  of  these  gave  clear  and  unbiassed  tes- 
timony. The  gipsies  proved  far  more  difficult. 
They  grudgingly  admitted  Mr.  Costello's 
death. 

"Mister?"  snapped  the  Coopers'  counsel. 
"What  was  the  man's  name  ?" 

"Jasper." 

"Did  they  think  he  died  a  natural  death?" 

"Well,  who  can  say?  He  had  been  in  a  city 
hospital !" 

Here  the  country  people  laughed,  reporters 
made  hasty  jottings,  and  Rhoda  Costello  took 
the  stand.  Her  pace  could  not  be  hurried  by 
judge  or  lawyers.  They,  she  and  her  man, 
had  been  off,  "down  Shenandoah  way,"  but 
feeling  stricken  with  illness,  Jasper  came  by 
forced  journeys  to  town,  first  to  see  after  a  few 
matters  of  business,  then  to  try  doctor's  stuff. 
Learning  in  the  hospital  that  his  illness  was 
mortal,  and  naturally  not  wishing  to  die  under 
a  roof,  among  strangers,  he  managed  to 
struggle  out  of  bed  and  drove  some  distance 


A  Tribe  of  Guardian  Angels    269 

when,  the  pains  growing  worse,  he  urged  her 
to  telegraph  his  sister  and  her  husband  Peter 
Cooper,  to  join  them  in  camp. 

"Telegraph !"  The  judge  showed  scepticism. 
"Had  they  a  Western  Union  wire  to  their 
van?" 

"No,  your  Honour."  Rhoda  was  full  of 
scornful  dignity.  "They  live  in  a  house  in 
Newark,  and  only  take  the  road  autumns,  for 
county  fairs.  In  a  house  they  live,  like 
pigs!" 

Mrs.  Costello's  testimony  was  not  to  be 
shaken.  They  had  come  at  once,  and  received 
from  her  dying  husband  a  half  of  all  his 
wealth.  The  rest,  with  tents,  wagons,  and 
horses  went  to  her,  his  lawful  wife.  A  just 
division  was  made,  the  gold  counted  out  in  two 
bags,  half  to  her,  half  to  them. 

Here  Seth  Williams  was  called.  .  .  .  He 
and  his  people  were  asked  to  the  funeral;  yes, 
they  had  long  known  Jasper  was  a  sick  man. 
"Everybody  knew  that."  But  he  became  much 
sicker  after  the  hospital.  Jasper's  body  had 


270       The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

been  put  in  the  ground;  an  old  horse,  not  a 
very  good  one,  "About  five  dollars,  it  might  be 
worth,"  killed  on  the  grave,  and  a  wagon 
burned,  "Not  a  very  good  one,  either."  Then 
Peter  and  Henrietta  drove  off  in  a  sulky  given 
them  by  Mrs.  Costello,  along  with  certain  tent- 
poles  and  the  dead  man's  clothes ;  she  herself 
preferring  to  join  the  Williams  tribe,  rather 
than  travel  alone,  or  live  with  house-dwelling 
Coopers. 

"I  was  not  going  to  let  them  rob  me,"  Rhoda 
interrupted.  "They  would  cut  my  throat,  if 
they  could.  I  am  alone.  I  have  got  nobody." 
She  would  not  be  silenced.  "It  was  different 
with  the  lady  and  gentleman,"  she  glanced  to- 
wards Nina.  "I  could  trust  him,  a  stranger, 
not  to  put  his  hands  against  my  money,  to 
carry  it  straight  to  bank  for  me"  (she  had 
described  their  drive  at  length).  "And  she, 
the  pretty  lady,  she  came  back  and  took  my 
sick  head  on  her  knee,  that  she  did!  instead 
of  sitting  up  in  front  with  her  .  .  ." 

Here    the    judge    hastily    imposed    silence, 


A  Tribe  of  Guardian  Angels   271 

calling  upon  Seth  to  continue.  Seth  had 
watched  Nina's  air  of  constraint.  He  had 
seen  the  unbroken  reserve  between  her 
and  Felix.  She  never  gave  a  look  at  him  or 
he  at  her.  Indeed,  this  open  coupling  was  al- 
most more  than  the  girl  could  bear;  she  had 
dreaded  fresh  publicity,  the  prolonging  of 
scandal,  but  what  she  felt  was  intolerably 
wounded  modesty.  There  they  sat,  pilloried, 
side  by  side;  and  though  no  actual  word  was 
spoken,  the  whole  inference  could  not  have 
been  plainer.  The  judge,  the  reporters,  gip- 
sies, and  country  people,  by  to-morrow  the 
entire  newspaper-reading  world,  could  only 
think  ...  It  came  over  her  in  waves  of 
heat  and  shame.  Why,  in  that  whole  court, 
only  herself  and  Felix  knew  the  truth !  And 
this  was  complicated  by  another  feeling,  the 
flatness  of  it !  How  he  must  hate  her,  he  who 
of  all  men  had  shown  her  only  respect.  For 
the  others,  she  might  as  well  be  the  lowest  of 
the  low,  one  who,  meeting  any  chance  stranger 
for  a  day,  was  ready And  why  was  the 


272       The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

judge  asking  if  Felix  had  known  her  before 
they  met  in  camp?  And  what — what  in 
mercy's  name,  was  Seth's  slow  answer  ?  Noth- 
ing but  the  truth,  the  misleading,  damaging 
truth ! 

"I  think  she  did  know  him  before,  though  I 
can't  say  for  sure." 

The  gipsy  gave  Nina  a  look  meant  to  be  re- 
assuring. It  was  drawn  from  him  piecemeal 
that,  when  Felix  lay  senseless  in  the  road,  Miss 
Braeme  had  seemed  to  recognise  his  face,  and 
that  was  why  he,  Seth,  naturally  chose  them 
to  drive  Mrs.  Costello.  Not  one  positive  state- 
ment did  he  make,  but  his  insinuations  were 
complete,  logical,  damning.  "He'll  have 
trouble  to  shake  free  of  her  after  that,"  Seth 
slipped  in  the  intelligent  ear  of  old  Mrs.  Lovel, 
as  he  took  his  place  among  the  Williams  fac- 
tion. 

Nina  felt  that  her  testimony  could  only 
hopelessly  confirm  his.  She  had  thought  the 
worst  would  be  when  they  discussed  her  mas- 
querading with  Felix  as  a  chance  acquaint- 


A  Tribe  of  Guardian  Angels    273 

ance,  but  this  proved  nothing  in  comparison  to 
the  air  of  premeditation  given  by  Seth's  care- 
fully tinctured  evidence. 

At  noon  the  court  held  recess.  Seth  cropped 
up  suddenly  at  her  elbow.  "Is  he  doing  right 
by  you?"  the  gipsy  whispered  with  a  glance 
at  Felix.  "I  can  say  more,  if  that  was  not 
enough.  You  did  well  by  us,  lady,  and  he's  a 
rich  man  and  should  see  to  you,  that  you  don't 
need  to  work." 

"He's  nothing  to  me,  now  or  ever.  You 
were  wrong."  Nina  felt  all  the  queerness  of 
discussing  this,  here  with  Felix  at  her  side. 
"I've  not  seen  him,  not  once  since  that  day  by 
the  river,  till  now,  and  didn't  want  to."  She 
would  have  gone  on,  but  for  the  utter  unbelief 
expressed  in  Seth's  polite  acceptance  of  her 
denial.  If  that  were  her  present  lay,  why,  no 
doubt  she  had  her  reasons ;  perhaps  a  new  man, 
but  if  so,  the  gipsy  saw  no  cause  for  her  un- 
happy blushes.  Just  then  a  lawyer  came 
across  the  room  to  explain  that  she  and  Mr. 
Gwynne  would  not  be  called  for  further  evi- 


274       The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

dence.  The  lawyer  was  disposed  to  linger  in 
their  company,  but  they  immediately  left  the 
court. 

"I  can't  hurt  you  any  further,  by  walking  to 
the  station  with  you,  can  I?"  Felix  was  re- 
duced to  a  brutal  directness. 

"I  think  we  have  about  done  for  each 
other!"  Nina  was  past  fencing;  besides,  of  all 
people,  he  alone  seemed  to  face  the  truth,  and 
in  this  maze  of  insinuation,  truth  seemed  the 
one  thing  she  must  hold  to.  She  was  slipping, 
slipping  down,  dragged  by  forces  far  beyond 
her  control.  Everything  was  going,  and  he, 
the  person  who  had  ruined  her,  he  alone  could 
furnish  courage,  just  because  he,  at  least, 
knew.  But  the  debt  and  Mr.  Quorn!  Mr. 
Quorn  only  waiting,  she  guessed  too  well  for 
what.  Since — all  this,  he  too  had  changed  to- 
wards her!  And  Percy!  Percy  might  even 
wish  to  marry  her,  but  she  also  knew  what  that 
meant.  A  passing  fancy  on  his  part,  none  at 
all  on  hers. 

"This  way,  I  think,"  Felix  broke  in  on  her, 


A  Tribe  of  Guardian  Angels    275 

turning  down  a  shabby  street,  towards  a 
shabby  station. 

They  sat  side  by  side,  like  culprits,  on  a 
much-hacked  bench.  Felix  at  last  looked  his 
companion  carefully  over,  but  Nina  never  met 
his  eye.  He  asked  politely  for  her  health,  her 
brother's,  for  the  play.  How  she  bore  the 
summer  in  town. 

She  answered  drily,  monosyllabically.  It 
was  hideous  that  they  could  no  longer  allow 
themselves  to  understand  each  other,  or  was  it 
that  understanding  had  now  gone  so  deep  that 
speech  only  came  as  a  check  upon  the  inter- 
course of  a  too  intimate  silence?  Suddenly 
she  spoke  with  a  frankness  born  of  his  utter 
comprehension.  "I  must  put  this  into  words, 
Mr.  Gwynne,  else  it  will  always  lie  between  us. 
You've  cost  me — the  last  shred  of  reputation. 
And  I've  cost  you  your  wife,  and,  God  help 
me,  I'm  going  on  as  if  nothing  had  happened, 
to  work  and  live  it  down."  For  a  moment  her 
voice  gave  out,  but  in  a  second  she  had  flung 
up  her  spirited  head  and  spoke  with  fire,  with 


276       The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

flashing  courage.  "They  can't  make  me  what 
I'm  not,  nor  you !  Remember  that,  and  go  on 
being  as  good — as  good  as  you've  been  to  me ! 
If  we  do  this,  both  of  us,  nothing  on  earth  can 
hound  us  on  to  baseness !" 

A  train  had  drawn  up  at  the  platform. 
Felix  nodded  gravely.  "You  are  right.  We 
must  play  the  hand  in  spite  of  them."  For 
once  their  eyes  met,  and  with  this  she  left  him. 
But  neither  of  them  fully  reckoned  how  many 
points  in  that  game  had  been  badly  lost  when, 
to  them,  the  world  had  grown  to  be  an  unde- 
fined "they,"  only  to  be  met  and  frustrated  by 
a  man  and  woman  who  to  one  another  could 
only  now  be  "we !" 

Nina  sat  upright  in  her  seat,  tingling.  Why 
had  she  done  this?  From  what  impulse  had 
she  put  into  words  a  resolve  which,  till  it  came 
from  her  lips,  she  was  wholly  unaware  of  hav- 
ing made  ?  Her  mind  raced  to  and  fro,  hunt- 
ing a  reason  which  at  first  proved  elusive. 
That  this  reason,  and  a  sound  one,  lurked  in 
some  tight-closed  brain  cell,  she  never 


A  Tribe  of  Guardian  Angels   277 

for  a  second  doubted.  Then  she  knew 
it,  with  a  shame  that  came  to  physical 
pain!  The  passionate  desire,  since  he  did  not 
love  her,  there  it  lay — to  keep  that  which  the 
world  would  be  so  sure  she  had  lost.  And 
more!  To  give  out  strength  and  endurance, 
since  he  did  not  love  her,  to  steady  his  course. 
During  the  long  scene  in  court,  neither  anger 
nor  emotion  of  any  kind  had  found  expression  in 
his  cold  eyes  and  controlled  features,  yet  for  all 
that,  it  needed  one  look  only  for  Nina  to  know 
that  his  inward  unhappiness  equalled  her  own. 

During  the  slow  weeks  that  followed,  she 
had  much  time  to  think  of  this;  in  fact,  "The 
Romany  Rawnie"  received  only  the  lees  of  her 
attention.  At  each  successive  rehearsal  her 
acting  grew  more  academic,  with  constantly 
smaller  result  from  the  realistic  study  which 
had  cost  so  dear.  Everything  connected  with 
the  gipsy  episode  had  grown  either  so  hateful, 
or  so  sacred — yes,  she  understood  it  now — that 
using  it  in  public  would  be  like  making  capital 


278       The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

out  of  intimate  moments.  Realising  this,  Nina 
also  knew  her  lack  as  an  actress,  the  point  of 
view  which  makes  of  all  emotions,  all  events, 
opportunity  of  study.  Percy  Planter  for  in- 
stance, though  no  genius,  possessed  this  in- 
stinct. Just  as  he  dramatised  a  lover-like  atti- 
tude towards  her,  he  now  dramatised  a  gentle- 
manly acceptance  of  her  rebuff.  The  very  ges- 
ture of  regret  he  had  made  on  leaving  her  at  the 
train  was  now  used  with  great  effect  in  Scene 
Two,  Act  One,  of  "The  Romany  Rawnie." 
Where  this  true  vocation  existed,  no  one,  not 
the  players  themselves,  would  ever  clearly  dis- 
tinguish between  practising  stage  effects  in  pri- 
vate, and  profiting  upon  the  stage  by  every  per- 
sonal experience.  There  was  the  difference! 
With  her,  every  detail  of  the  camp  seemed  in- 
timate history,  something  to  be  jealously 
guarded.  In  the  most  personal  of  all  arts,  the 
girl  longed  only  to  veil  herself  from  personal 
display.  Daily  she  expected  reproof,  remon- 
strance from  Mr.  Quorn,  but  no  acting  ap- 
peared too  tame  to  give  him  satisfaction. 


A  Tribe  of  Guardian  Angels    279 

Apart  from  insisting  upon  photographs  in 
every  conceivable  costume,  the  manager  made 
few  demands  upon  her.  She  was  conscious  of 
being  carried  beyond  her  true  place.  The 
sense  that  notoriety  would  supplant  solid 
achievement  seemed  to  wither  ambition.  How 
enjoy  an  authority  she  was  far  from  having 
earned,  when  a  public  slur  upon  her  name  in- 
sured more  certain  advancement  than  years  of 
honest  work? 

It  had  plainly  come  to  this.  Confident  that 
audiences  would  flock  to  see  the  woman  whose 
name  was  linked  with  Felix  Gwynne's,  Mr. 
Quorn  forbore  criticism;  and  this  he  did  with 
kindly  intention  of  sparing  nerves  which  he 
saw  to  be  overwrought  and  raw. 

Rupert  in  his  hospital  had  learned  of  the 
trial,  and  the  boy's  letters  were  far  from 
pleasant  reading.  Without  his  ever  saying  it, 
evidently  he  did  not  heartily  acquit  her.  He 
sarcastically  congratulated  her  when  Mrs.  Cos- 
tello  obtained  a  favourable  verdict,  then  curtly 
mentioned  that  he  was  meeting  with  great 


280       The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

kindness  from  Dr.  Browne.  Seeing  how  the 
boy's  worried  state  impeded  recovery,  the  sur- 
geon actually  carried  him  off  to  his  own  Adi- 
rondack camp.  This  came  about  quite  sud- 
denly, and  a  letter  from  Nina  saying  that  she 
must  absolutely  see  her  brother,  only  reached 
New  York  after  Dr.  Browne  himself  had  taken 
Rupert  from  the  hospital  to  the  train.  From  a 
mountain  lake,  Rupert  wrote  again.  He  was 
gaining  strength,  would  have  been  well,  but 
for  a  slight  complication  which  forbade  walk- 
ing. He  would  sketch  a  little  .  .  . 

Nina  felt  that  his  letter  should  have  lessened 
her  anxieties,  but  the  tone  seemed  distant,  or 
was  she  truly  growing  morbid  ?  At  the  end  she 
found  something  about  not  joining  her  till  he 
should  be  able  to  take  a  proper  place  as  his  sis- 
ter's protector. 

Meantime,  when  not  busy  at  the  theatre,  she 
lived  to  herself  through  shortening  August 
days.  She  read,  tried  to  study,  and  strove 
with  increasing  discouragement  to  suppress  an 
encroaching  distaste  for  her  chosen  profession. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 
BDelatfce  ©begs 

AFTER  the  trial  Felix  again  wrote  to  his 
wife.  Although  she  had  authorised  her 
parents  to  return,  unopened,  all  letters  from 
him,  the  chance  of  a  new  servant's  bringing 
the  mail  put  into  her  hands  an  envelope  ad- 
dressed in  his  writing.  Having  marked  out  a 
line  of  conduct,  Adelaide's  only  idea  was  im- 
plicitly to  follow  it.  Slowly  leaving  a  big  arm- 
chair she  walked  towards  the  fireplace,  with  no 
intention  but  to  put  a  match  to  the  unread  mis- 
sive. It  felt  thick  and  heavy,  he  had  written  at 
length.  She  struck  a  light,  blew  it  out,  waited 
a  moment.  At  first  she  was  only  conscious  of 
a  wish  to  delay,  but  this  quickly  merged  into 
the  stress  of  full-blown  temptation.  Suddenly 
unable  to  resist,  she  found  herself  eagerly 
reading — "Why  believe  printed  absurdities, 
281 


282       The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

rather  than  my  word,  dear?  The  papers  are 
caught  lying  every  day,  and  whatever  you  may 
have  to  complain  of  in  me,  you  never  found  me 
doing  that.  Surely  it  should  be  as  easy  to 
credit  the  truth,  and  pleasanter.  And  what  is 
it  all  about?  We  seem  to  have  known  each 
other  very  little,  you  and  I.  You  think  me — 
unbelievable!  And  I  did  think  you,  as  you 
look !  Utterly  pure-minded.  Yet  because  of  a 
series  of  accidents,  you  are  ready  to  fit  the 
lowest  meaning  upon  a  situation  that  can  be 
explained  naturally.  Indeed,  Adelaide,  it  can- 
not be  you !  You've  been  seeing  through  other 
eyes  than  your  own.  If  once  you  would  come 
here  to  me,  we  could  talk  together  in  Miss 
Anne's  peaceful  old  room.  Here,  by  the  river, 
it  is  cool  and  green,  but  behind  us,  in  the  great 
sun-baked  country,  the  wonder  of  the  harvest 
is  working  its  slow,  passionate  fruition.  To- 
gether we  can  unravel  mysteries,  and  there  is 
something  for  us,  a  clue,  a  key,  in  these  fields 
of  yellow  corn,  in  the  ceaseless  labour  for  an 
end,  in  the  heavy  wains  crawling  to  town, 


Adelaide  Obeys  283 

laden  with  fruits  of  the  earth.  What  is  it? 
Stability,  the  tyranny  and  the  comfort  of  being 
part  of  life.  Indeed,  Adelaide,  you  should  be 
here,  with  me.  If  there  be  storms,  we  need 
each  other's  aid  to  weather  them.  Brooding 
alone,  you'll  never  learn  to  know  that,  though 
doubtless  a  trying  creature,  I  am  no  monster. 
Now  here  is  a  truth,  a  hard  one.  You,  my 
dear,  had  driven  me  to  the  point  of  believing 
that  I  never  again  could  bear  the  sight  of  your 
face;  that  it  would  be  joy  to  be  rid  of  you! 
That  once  free  of  you,  I'd  find  a  beautiful 
world  waiting  for  me,  full  of  gaiety,  excite- 
ment, freedom.  That  is  the  queer  thing.  It 
seems  as  if  somewhere  under  irritation,  anger, 
under  the  fact  that  we  don't  get  on,  I  really 
must  care  for  you.  And  God  help  you,  dear,  I 
believe  you  care  for  me.  It  is  a  misfortune  for 
us  both.  We  are  mismated,  but  we  are  mated ! 
That  is  real,  and  if  we  cannot  be  very  happy 
together,  apart  we  are  still  less  so.  Even 
though  we  disagree,  there  have  been  moments 
when  we  did  truly  come  together.  It  is 


284       The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

those  we  must  remember  .  .  ."  Adelaide  was 
trembling.  Surely  there  had  been  moments! 
"Now  listen,  and  believe,"  she  read  on. 
"When  you  cast  me  off,  I  had  every  intention 
of  vanishing,  to  Paris,  to  the  East,  for  exactly 
the  kind  of  diversion  that  your  people  were 
good  enough  to  credit  me  with.  Why  deny 
myself  ?  The  odium  was  already  mine,  do  you 
see?  Besides,  I  fancy  you  can  hardly  realise 
what  it  means  that  Rachel  Bernstein  is  giving 
my  play,  every  night,  in  her  own  theatre,  that 
they  have  written  and  cabled  me  to  come.  You 
won't  be  able  to  understand,  but  perhaps  you 
will  believe  that  the  thing,  whatever  it  is, 
which  enables  me  to  write,  also  goads  me  with 
a  craving  to  see  my  own  creation.  Not  the 
mere  vulgar  applause,  though  I'm  not  above 
wanting  that  too,  but  the  pure  joy  of  seeing 
fulfilled  ideas !  And  yet,  week  after  week,  I've 
stayed  here,  in  this  quiet  old  house,  alone  and 
waiting.  Am  I  to  wait  forever?  And  there's 
another  thing!  How  can  you  be  so  cruel  to 
that  unlucky  girl  ?  Why,  at  the  trial,  even  your 


Adelaide  Obeys  285 

mother  must  have  pitied  her!  Think  of  the 
sheer  indecency!  Why,  the  poor  child  hardly 
knows  me,  yet  I'm  supposed  ...  There  we 
sat,  side"  by  side,  pelted  by  every  filthy  in- 
sinuation, ticketed,  yoked.  Wasn't  it  enough 
to  drive  her — and  she's  pretty,  Adelaide,  very 
pretty,  and  far  cleverer  than  you — into  my 
arms?  And  what  difference  could  there  be, 
with  all  the  world  thinking  the  worst  already  ? 
Ashamed  and  outraged  as  she  was,  and  angry, 
can  you  guess  what  she  did?  Only  exhorted 
me  to  be  good,  and  not  let  myself  be  hounded 
on  to  baseness!  Her  words!  And  that's  the 
girl  you've  ruined,  Adelaide.  You've  not  left 
her  reputation  enough  to  cover  her.  She  is 
held  up,  stripped  and  shivering,  for  the  public 
to  leer  at.  She  would  hide,  but  because, 
through  no  fault  of  her,  there's  money  owing, 
she  must  needs  go  on  and  work.  We  could 
free  her  in  a  second.  The  sum  she  lacks  would 
be  less  than  nothing  to  you  and  me,  but  alone 
I  can  give  her  nothing,  not  one  far- 
thing .  .  ."  Adelaide  spread  the  close-written 


286       The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

sheet  on  her  knee,  her  shaking  hands  would 
no  longer  hold  it. 

"I'll  be  franker  still,  Adelaide.  At  first  I 
stayed  here  in  hopes  of  a  chance  to  remedy  the 
evil  I  had  done  her.  But  there  can  be  no  help 
from  me,  only  harm.  Now  I  am  waiting  be- 
cause there  is  an  obstinate  girl,  twenty  miles 
away,  who  is  my  wife,  and  to  whom  I'm  bound 
by  a  tie  that  doesn't  readily  break.  It  seems  to 
me,  at  this  minute,  that  you  have  almost  every 
fault  in  the  world,  dear.  All  but  one!  You 
are  real !  But  in  the  name  of  the  love  we  have 
felt  for  each  other,  don't  let  the  fragments  of 
our  happiness  be  shattered  beyond  repair,  for 
unreality,  for  other  people's  ugly  dreams !" 

When  Mrs.  Noel  came  home  from  her  drive, 
she  found  something  never  before  known  in 
the  annals  of  Noel  Place,  Adelaide  sobbing 
helplessly  in  her  room,  uncontrolled  and 
abandoned  to  imprudent  and  agitating  tears. 

"Dear  child,"  Mrs.  Noel  even  felt  disturb- 
ance gaining  upon  her,  "don't  talk.  Remem- 


Adelaide  Obeys  287 

her,  remember  .  .  ."  A  question  hovered  in 
the  air,  but  Adelaide  volunteered  .  .  . 

"Felix  has  written.     He  wants  me !" 

The  older  lady  drew  in  hard,  unfriendly  lips. 
''You  promised,  you  would  hold  no  communi- 
cation with  him,  till — afterwards.  If  a  mere 
letter  throws  you  into  such  excitement,  what 
would  it  be  to  see  him,  now,"  Mrs.  Noel  hated 
to  touch  on  the  physical  aspects  of  existence, 
"at  this  time  when  quiet  is  so  essential?  If 
you  do  not  care  for  your  life,  you  have  at  least 
a  duty.  Why,  you  are  white  now,  you  are 
faint  .  .  ." 

A  quickly  summoned  doctor  eventually 
strengthened  Mrs.  Noel's  hand.  Whatever 
Adelaide  might  choose  to  do  later,  for  the  next 
few  weeks  she  must  needs  obey.  Mrs.  Noel 
disliked  baring  family  matters,  even  to  family 
doctors,  but  yielded  to  the  necessity  of  mak- 
ing clear  how  the  intolerable  ways  of  Mr. 
Gwynne  had  driven  his  wife  from  him,  while 
she  was  yet  well  and  vigorous. 

The  doctor  was  not  immediately  convinced. 


288       The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

"Young  women  take  great  comfort  in  their 
husbands,  at  these  times,  Mrs.  Noel,"  he  re- 
monstrated. "The  best  mother  is  a  long  way 
behind." 

But  Effie's  testimony  was  unearthed.  Mr. 
Gwynne's  ungovernable  temper  had  brought 
about  a  scene,  even  on  their  wedding  day. 
Once  started,  with  all  the  abandon  of  a  re- 
served woman  finally  goaded  into  speech,  Mrs. 
Noel  had  her  will  of  Felix.  Brutal,  incon- 
stant, the  saga  of  his  misdeeds  led  only  too 
logically  to  such  a  climax  as  the  police  court 
and  Nina  Braeme! 

Entirely  convinced,  the  doctor  gave  his  ver- 
dict. Though  even  an  indifferent  husband 
might  afford  comfort,  the  presence  of  a  turbu- 
lent and  vicious  one  could  only  mean  danger 

Adelaide  herself  was  too  weak  and  ill  for  re- 
monstrance. The  terror  and  strangeness  of 
this  new  experience,  a  desire  to  save  her  child, 
brought  her  to  obedience.  Moreover,  with  a 
sad  reasonableness,  she  saw  the  impossibility 
of  travelling  to  Chastellux,  the  equal  impossi- 


Adelaide  Obeys  289 

bility  of  bringing  Felix  in  contact  with  her 
parents.  She  lay  in  a  quiet  room  to  which 
there  presently  came  a  noiseless  girl  in  white, 
a  girl  before  whom  even  Mrs.  Noel's  authority 
wavered  and  submitted.  Frightening,  unbear- 
able pain  tormented  her  body.  Doctors  were 
there,  they  stayed  by  her  bed  all  night,  talking 
low,  watching,  reassuring  her  too  elaborately. 
At  the  worst  moment,  she  was  not  afraid  of 
dying,  only  anxious  to  know !  Towards  morn- 
ing she  felt  ease,  or  was  it  that  capacity  for 
pain  had  waned  with  waning  strength?  Or 
was  it  drugs?  "Am  I  to  live?"  she  asked. 

The  great  man  patted  her  thin  hand.  "Why 
not,  dear  lady?  You  came  near  being  rather 
ill,  that's  all.  Now  it  is  quite  right,  only  you 
must  stay  here,  flat  in  bed.  No  effort,  no  ex- 
citement ..." 

"Thank  you."  For  all  her  weakness,  Ade- 
laide could  still  think  and  feel — feel  bitterly 
that  here  she  was  like  a  mateless  waif,  in  this 
state  where  every  mortal  woman  needs  the  care 
and  sympathy — the  tenderness  of  that  person 


290       The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

for  whom  these  pangs  are  suffered.  She  had 
seen  other  young  wives,  the  pride,  the  anxiety 
of  their  husbands  .  .  .  And  here  she  had  fled 
back  to  her  parents'  house,  to  be  reassured 
by  strangers,  unsustained,  uncherished.  Her 
sick  imagination  played  cruel  tricks.  Often 
she  dozed  and  dreamt  of  his  coming,  there, 
through  the  doorway.  Then  she  believed  in 
him,  and  again  disbelieved.  Gradually  she 
grew  quieter,  resting  her  mind  on  a  secret  re- 
solve. Now  she  could  do  nothing,  only  wait. 
Duty  to  the  coming  child  imposed  this,  but 
once  her  illness  over,  no  power  on  earth  should 
keep  her  from  at  least  making  one  more  trial  to 
live  at  Chastellux  with  Felix.  He  liked  chil- 
dren; perhaps  after  this  their  understanding 
would  be  different.  Was  it  weakness,  or  the 
softness  of  approaching  motherhood  ?  She  no 
longer  judged  him.  That  could  likewise  wait. 
He  was  right,  though,  in  one  thing.  The  bond 
was  strong  between  them,  strong  enough  to 
cause  all  this  havoc,  to  reduce  her  from 
strength  to  helplessness,  from  courage  to 


Adelaide  Obeys  291 

timidity.  Strong  enough  to  hurt  grievously 
from  the  wrench  of  his  absence. 

Without  strength  for  reasoning,  Adelaide 
floated  on  the  wave  of  a  new  feeling,  and  saw 
with  the  new  insight  of  suffering  and  growth. 
Perhaps  she  had  given  the  wrong  father  to  this 
child  of  theirs.  With  half  its  nature  derived 
from  him,  it  would  not  be  like  any  child  of  the 
Noels.  There  would  be  turbulence  and  pas- 
sions. But  as  their  blended  lives  had  made  it, 
so  must  their  natures  blend  and  yield  to  make 
themselves  a  life.  If  one  of  them  had  been 
lame  or  sickly,  why,  the  child  could  not  have 
been  destroyed  for  being  blemished  by  that  in- 
heritance; and  so,  even  granted  that  her  hus- 
band's moral  nature  halted,  why,  still  their  two 
inextricably  blended  lives  remained,  halting 
perhaps,  but  indestructible. 

All  this  time  Adelaide  lay  passive  on  her 
bed,  ate,  drank,  as  she  was  bid,  made  no  com- 
plaint of  suffering,  humbly  accepting  the  assur- 
ance that  if  a  letter  from  Felix  brought  her  to 
this  plight,  his  actual  presence,  now,  would  be 


292       The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

little  short  of  self-destruction.  She  acquiesced 
the  more  readily,  since,  after  all,  in  certain 
points  his  letter  had  not  brought  perfect  con- 
viction. True,  the  fantasy  was  being  played 
in  Paris,  nightly,  and  he  lingered  at  Chastellux 
alone.  But  what  proof  did  he  bring  that  this 
was  for  the  sake  of  a  wife  languishing  twenty 
miles  away?  Adelaide  could  not  wholly  for- 
get that  nearer  still,  there  was,  in  town,  a  girl 
"far  cleverer  than"  she,  the  pretty  actress  Nina 
Braeme. 


CHAPTER  XIX 

IRawnte  " 


AS  "The  Romany  Rawnie's"  first  night  ap- 
proached, Mr.  Quorn  grew  hourly  more 
cheery  and  more  resourceful.  Odious  little 
paragraphs  began  to  multiply,  hinting  at  a  de- 
tachment of  gipsies  in  the  audience,  that  a  box 
had  been  reserved  for  a  real  gipsy  queen.  Con- 
fronted with  these,  by  Nina,  the  manager 
utterly  disclaimed  having  inspired  such 
rumours. 

"Why,  Miss  Braeme  !  Where  would  be  the 
sense  of  that?  You  are  a  dead  sure  thing  for 
the  first  few  weeks,  anyhow.  Then  if  the  box- 
office  end  slackens,  we  could  do  something  of 
that  kind;  but  now  it  would  be  downright 
waste,  with  the  public  all  cocked  and  primed 
to  see  you.  Not  a  seat  to  be  had  !" 

Every  detail  had  received  the  final  polishing, 
293 


294       The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

a  secretive  copyright  performance  out  of  town 
passed  off  without  mishap;  both  players  and 
management  were  now  in  the  state  of  nerves 
and  anguish  always  provoked  by  impending 
first  nights.  In  course  of  rehearsal,  no  less 
than  six  leading  ladies  had  in  turn  thrown  up 
the  role  of  heroine,  in  spasms  of  jealousy  over 
the  prominence  given  to  Nina.  A  seventh  had 
been  reconciled  to  this  dislocation  of  prece- 
dence, only  by  permission  to  wear  garments 
of  unexampled  splendour.  A  pearl-coloured 
chiffon  boating  costume  with  satin  shoes 
to  match,  restored  her  self-respect,  and  prop- 
erly distanced  "The  Romany  Rawnie's"  vulgar 
calico.  Also  the  transferred  affections  of  Mr. 
Percy  Planter  allayed  her  last  misgivings  as  to 
whether  professional  yalues  were  not  com- 
promised by  playing  with  such  a  manager's 
darling  as  Nina  Braeme. 

Percy  had  worked  out  his  effects  with  un- 
flagging zeal.  There  came  moments  of  radi- 
antly holding  the  stage  and  proclaiming  him- 
self a  "silly  ass"  (the  entire  company  con- 


"The  Romany  Rawnie  "       295 

sidered  this  a  masterpiece  of  dramatic  art) 
when  no  modesty  could  prevent  his  knowing 
that  the  matinee  public,  to  a  girl,  would  love 
him  madly.  Nina  had  heard  him  experiment 
with  intonations,  till  he  achieved  the  exact 
shade  from  which  he  would  not  vary,  whether 
"The  Romany  Rawnie"  ran  one  winter,  or 
two.  Together  they  had  practised  their  em- 
brace till  it  could  be  done  without  further 
thought.  If  the  play  succeeded,  for  the  next 
many  months  their  duties  would  consist  in 
mere  bodily  presence,  well-drilled  mechanism 
having  put  them  beyond  need  of  any  mental 
effort. 

At  the  theatre,  Nina's  prestige  had  waned. 
Gradually  a  damaging  suspicion  gained  ground 
that  there  had  not  been  "much"  between  her 
and  Felix  Gwynne.  In  some  obscure  way, 
without  regaining  reputation,  she  distinctly  lost 
caste  from  this,  even  to  the  point  of  receiving 
the  occasional  snubs  due  persons  who  pirate 
unearned  celebrity. 

But  for  the  industry  of  paragraphers,  fam- 


296       The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

ine-stricken  by  summer  dulness,  Mr.  Quorn 
would  have  feared  that  the  outside  public 
might  grasp  the  situation,  and  lose  interest  be- 
fore he  had  reaped  the  profits  of  Miss  Braeme's 
imprudence. 

Two  nights  before  the  opening,  Rupert  came 
back  from  his  holiday,  still  pale  and  delicate, 
but  declaring  himself  quite  well  and  fit  for 
work.  He  at  once  assumed  the  role  of  mascu- 
line protector,  accompanying  his  sister  to  the 
last  rehearsals,  guarding  her  dressing-room 
door,  and  displaying  a  highly  offensive  man- 
ner toward  every  living  creature  connected 
with  the  theatre.  He  freely  criticised  play, 
players,  and  staging.  Nina's  share  came  in  for 
heavy  censure.  A  more  spiritless  conception 
he  had  never  seen.  At  the  same  time,  his  un- 
natural reticence  about  more  important  matters 
kept  the  girl  constantly  uneasy.  That  he 
should  scold  and  fume  she  fully  expected,  but 
for  him  barely  to  refer  to  the  summer's  esca- 
pade left  her  ill-assured. 

On  the  first  night  he  sat  alone,  well  to  the 


"  The  Romany  Rawnie  "      297 

rear.  Nina  had  never  done  worse.  Fatigue 
and  discouragement  showed  even  through  a 
flaring  make-up.  Whether  from  nervousness 
or  sheer  disgust,  her  lines  fairly  dragged,  her 
business  failed  to  carry.  The  curtain  went 
down,  leaving  Rupert  convinced  that  the  play 
could  not  run  a  week.  To  his  surprise,  the 
house  rang  with  applause,  genuine,  hearty 
clapping  of  hands.  He  studied  the  audience 
uneasily.  A  great  preponderance  of  men. 
Then  men  with  women,  such  women !  All 
through  the  act  they  had  been  stealing  in,  un- 
obtrusive, intimate  pairs.  Many  only  found 
their  seats  in  time  for  the  closing  lines.  The 
curtain  fell  on  a  quiet  stage,  there  was  no  point 
for  enthusiasm,  no  a  propos.  Again  and  again 
the  curtain  went  up  and  down  on  Nina  vainly 
trying  to  share  her  triumph  with  the  leading 
lady  and  Percy  Planter. 

On  his  way  to  her  dressing-room,  Rupert 
met  Mr.  Quorn,  who  almost  kissed  him. 
Hedged  in  by  a  knot  of  allies,  the  leading  lady, 
however,  turned  him  an  elaborate  back.  Percy 


298       The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

Planter's  greeting  was  laboured,  although  he 
managed  a  gentlemanly  sentence  on  Miss 
Braeme's  triumph. 

Nina  herself  was  busy  with  a  change  and 
would  talk  of  nothing  but  certain  sticks  of 
black  and  red  grease.  The  make-up  man  did 
not  please  her.  She  believed  Rupert  could  do 
better  with  her  eyebrows,  a  slant  was  needed. 
Between  brother  and  sister  no  serious  word 
passed.  Tongue-tied  and  thoroughly  wretch- 
ed, they  put  each  other  off,  deferring  the  reck- 
oning. 

The  next  act  was  worse.  Nina  could  barely 
move  without  provoking  a  ripple  of  applause. 
Percy's  "silly  ass"  climax  passed  unheeded. 
Even  dressmakers,  haunting  first  nights  for 
early  fashion  hints,  gave  scant  attention  to  the 
leading  lady's  simple  little  travelling-suit  of 
antique  lace  and  sequins. 

Comments  were  rife. 

"She  knows!" 

"Bet  Nina  Braeme  could  show  us  more 
than's  in  the  play  .  .  ." 


"  The  Romany  Rawnie  "      299 

Between  acts  two  and  three  Rupert  stalked 
up  and  down  the  lobby,  smoking  and  glaring, 
but  as  he  was  quite  unknown  to  fame,  no 
notice  fell  upon  a  handsome,  foolish-looking 
lad,  who  tossed  his  head  and  glowered  with  a 
vigour  entirely  belied  by  transparent  pallor  and 
delicate  white  hands. 

In  the  last  act,  he  found  a  hitherto  vacant 
seat  next  his  occupied  by  a  man,  whom  at  a 
glance  he  saw  to  be  Felix  Gwynne.  At  the 
same  moment  Felix  recognised  the  boy  of 
Nina's  locket. 

Presently  the  stranger  spoke:  "How  is 
Miss  Braeme  standing  it?" 

Rupert's  answer  came  short  and  ill-tem- 
pered. He  had  not  seen  her  during  the  last 
entre-acte. 

Felix  persisted  with  a  question  or  two;  was 
he  with  his  sister,  was  he  well  .  .  ? 

The  disproportioned  enthusiasm  simmered 
and  boiled.  Nina  could  hardly  endure  till  the 
end,  but  the  audience  cared  only  to  see  her,  and 
in  surroundings  so  pleasantly  like  the  actual 


300       The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

scene  of  her  famous  adventure.  At  the  last, 
Mr.  Quorn  himself  led  her  again  and  again  be- 
fore the  curtain,  beaming  upon  the  house,  and 
chivalrously  laying  at  her  feet  whole  stacks  of 
flowers.  Flowers  which  had  not  been  paid  for 
by  the  management! 

Stout,  well-fed  men  in  boxes  glued  their 
glasses  on  her,  and  gay  ladies,  amateur,  pro- 
fessional, and  debatable,  smiled  upon  her  as  a 
promising  recruit  to  their  own  tarnished  sis- 
terhood. In  Mr.  Ouorn's  esteem,  no  opening 
could  have  been  more  propitious. 

Suddenly  Felix  turned  to  Rupert.  "See, 
Mr.  Braeme,  this  must  never  happen  again. 
We  must  do  something.  Now  that  you  are 
here,  I  can  talk  to  your  sister.  Before,  while 
she  had  no  one,  my  hands  were  tied." 

Paler  than  ever,  Rupert  nodded,  almost 
rigid  with  the  effort  to  conceal  trembling 
weakness. 

"Listen,"  Felix  went  on.  "Get  her  now, 
don't  let  them  make  her  stay  to  supper.  Take 
her  straight  to  your  lodgings,  and  I'll  join  you 


"  The  Romany  Rawnie  "       301 

there  in  a  half-hour.  This  must  be  arranged 
to-night." 

People  were  going  home,  warm  with  the 
glow  of  having  been  on  the  spot.  A  first  night 
to  remember!  Conjecture  buzzed.  Knowing 
men  imparted  common  newspaper  gossip,  with 
all  the  air  of  privileged  insiders  retailing 
special  information.  Lingering  in  shadow  till 
the  lights  began  to  vanish,  Felix  slipped  from 
the  theatre  unobserved. 

His  plan  was  complete.  The  position  had 
grown  too  intolerable.  He  could  not  leave 
Nina  to  bear  this  disgusting,  undeserved  suc- 
cess. He  had  come  to  the  play,  stolen  in  late, 
merely  with  a  wish  not  to  desert  her,  with  no 
design,  no  thought  of  interference;  but  what 
he  had  seen  that  night  justified  any  measure, 
the  most  desperate. 

On  the  sidewalk,  in  a  tangle  of  people  wait- 
ing for  carriages,  he  almost  ran  into  Tommy 
and  Angela.  He  had  not  even  known  of  their 
being  in  town.  They  were  eager,  would  he 
gup  with  them?  They  were  having  a  mild 


302       The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

celebration.  Tommy's  leave  was  nearly  up, 
and  they  had  invited  Angela's  guardian  angel 
to  join  them.  The  little  bride's  good-will  em- 
braced even  Mr.  Rudolph  Webber  of  Stein's. 
Charlie  emerged  from  the  crowd  on  the  arm 
of  a  young  man  whose  style  suffered  no  loss  of 
lustre  by  the  side  of  her  own  trousseau  mag- 
nificence. 

The  two  young  women  pressed  Felix,  show- 
ing happiness  in  their  several  ways;  Charlie, 
exuberant,  helpful,  not  too  discreet:  Angela 
with  half-closed  eyes  and  a  smile  of  heavenly 
content.  Would  he  sup  with  them? 

Almost  impatiently  he  refused.  The  even- 
ing had  disinclined  him  for  gaiety.  Gradually 
Angela  forgot  her  bliss  and  came,  full  of  sym- 
pathy and  feeling,  into  his  world  of  exasper- 
ated pain.  They  walked  together,  Tommy 
falling  back,  rallying  and  joking  the  other 
pair,  teasing  the  stately  Mr.  Webber  with  dark 
allusions  to  remote  passages  between  himself 
and  the  lively  typewriter.  Charlie,  laughing, 
denying  .  .  . 


"  The  Romany  Rawnie  "      303 

Meantime  Angela  explained.  Now  the  situ- 
ation could  be  managed.  A  runaway  bride,  of 
course,  was  the  poorest  chaperon,  but  Cousin 
Emily  was  now  in  town,  had  come  in  fact, 
though  far  from  well,  with  a  view  to  Felix. 
So  at  least  Angela  suspected. 

"I've  not  been  near  Miss  Braeme,"  Felix  as- 
sured her,  "but  now  she  has  a  brother  about; 
so  I  can  see  her,  once  at  least.  I'm  on  my  way 
there  now  to  meet  him.  By  to-morrow  we 
will  find  some  way.  This  has  been  martyr- 
dom." 

Leaving  them,  Felix  went  straight  to  Nina's 
apartment.  The  smooth  elevator  shot  up,  he 
pressed  her  bell,  but  instead  of  Rupert,  Nina 
herself  opened  the  door. 


CHAPTER  XX 
lUben  Aortal  Girls! 

WITHOUT  a  word  she  led  him  across  a 
narrow  passage  into  her  small  sitting- 
room.  Some  charcoal  sketches  of  Rupert's 
were  littered  about ;  on  the  open  piano  stood  a 
framed  one,  a  study  on  heavy  white  paper  of 
pale  grey  clouds.  Nina's  silken  dustcoat  lay 
over  the  back  of  a  chair,  but  she  had  left  all 
flowers  and  tokens  at  the  theatre. 

There  was  a  moment's  silence.  She  neither 
wondered  why  he  had  come  nor  what  he  would 
say.  Curiosity,  indignation,  discomfort,  every 
sensation  had  been  deadened  by  the  hideous 
hours  behind  her,  by  a  sub-conscious  knowl- 
edge of  hideous  days  to  come. 

All  at  once  her  tired  mind  awoke  to  a  point 
of  dread.  "Rupert?"  she  asked,  "has  anything 
304 


When  Mortal  Girls!  305 

happened  to  him?  Did  you  come  to  tell 
me  ...  ?" 

Felix  shook  his  head,  mentioning  his  mes- 
sage. Had  not  Rupert  told  her  to  expect  his 
visit? 

Nina  grew  uneasy.  The  boy  had  given  no 
message,  merely  put  her  in  a  carriage  at  the 
stage  door,  saying  he  would  walk  home  for 
the  sake  of  breathing  fresh  air. 

Felix  was  reassured;  her  brother  wished  to 
give  them  a  word  together  first.  Privately  he 
had  not  credited  Rupert  with  so  much  sense. 

Nina  drew  a  long  breath  of  relief. 

Looking  at  her,  Felix  found  her  thin,  more 
worn,  more  fragile  than  he  remembered  her, 
also  more  brilliant  and  with  a  new  expressive- 
ness. The  straight  black  hair  lay  tight  and 
smooth  across  her  low  forehead ;  the  oval  of 
her  face  showed  sharply  pointed.  The  eyes 
were  larger,  deeper. 

She  sank  back  in  her  chair  weary  and  inert, 
only  waiting  for  his  next  word,  but  her  eyes 
followed  him  without  ceasing  as  he  moved 


306       The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

restlessly  to  and  fro — three  paces  to  the  win- 
dow, three  to  her  ugly  little  escritoire. 

He  began  abruptly:  "I  came  to  say  good- 
bye." 

Nina  leaned  forward,  elbows  on  knees,  her 
chin  resting  on  clasped  hands. 

"There  is  absolutely  nothing  to  keep 
me  here,"  he  continued.  "My  being 
away  .  .  ."  He  pulled  up,  checked  by  the 
impossibility  of  even  hinting  a  syllable  con- 
cerning his  wife,  his  unheeded  appeals. 

Nina  helped  him.  "To  Paris?"  Her  voice 
answered  poorly  to  the  helm. 

He  nodded.  "To-morrow  I  shall  leave  this 
hateful  town,  for  years.  Why  come  back  at 
all?"  He  had  stopped  at  the  window  and  was 
looking  out  over  chimney-pots  and  dreary  flats 
of  roof.  "We  may  never  see  each  other  again, 
Miss  Braeme." 

Nina's  lips  met  tightly.  Ah!  At  this  mo- 
ment she  could  so  well  have  done  with  less  re- 
spect, less  considerate  distance. 

His  manner  grew  formal,  even  business-like. 


When  Mortal  Girls!  307 

"You  must  never  take  that  part  again,  I'm 
going  to  arrange — "  he  opened  the  desk  and 
without  sitting  quickly  wrote — "with  your 
brother.  This  cheque  is  made  out  to  him.  He 
must  take  it  to  pay  your  forfeit,  to  free  you. 
There  is  no  obligation  to  me.  You  shouldn't 
feel  that.  And  my  no  longer  being  here  will 
save  you  in  every  way,  no  one  can  talk.  Flesh 
and  blood  couldn't  bear  more  of  that,  at  the 
theatre.  After  a  time  it  will  be  forgotten; 
what  is  here  will  tide  you  over  .  .  ." 

Nina  had  flushed  crimson.  "Not  your 
money,  Mr.  Gwynne!" 

Felix  came  towards  her,  drew  up  a  little 
spindle  chair,  leaned  over  her,  eager,  per- 
suasive. "But  you  must!"  He  dropped  the 
cheque  into  her  lap.  "There  is  nothing  else  to 
do.  Don't  you  suppose  I  hate  to  have  it  this 
way,  deliberately  to  put  you  out  of  my  life,  to 
turn  my  back  on  comradeship,  on  the  pleasure 
of  .  .  ." 

Nina  had  watched  him  with  eyes  in  which 
her  whole  existence  seemed  to  centre  and  radi- 


308       The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

ate.  "Not  your  money,  Mr.  Gwynne!"  Her 
silver  tones  had  come  back,  low  and  fraught 
with  pain. 

"But  you  must.  Another  such  night  as 
this  .  .  .  !  It's  not  to  be  thought  of."  He 
clasped  her  wrist.  "Why,  even  now,  the  beat- 
ing of  your  heart  .  .  ." 

"I  thought  so !"  It  was  Rupert's  voice  from 
the  doorway,  very  deliberate,  very  full  of 
youthful  sarcasm.  He  had  come  in  softly  and 
now  stood  eyeing  them  tragically,  fatefully, 
with  knitted  brows,  hands  in  pockets,  exagger- 
ated, over-dramatic,  yet  vaguely  alarming. 

"Thought  what?"  Felix  also  was  frowning 
with  ill-mastered  exasperation.  "Thought 
that  you  were  late  for  an  appointment?" 

Rupert  burst  out  furiously.  "Take  your 
hand  off  my  sister.  Don't  touch  her !  Hasn't 
she  been  through  disgrace  enough  already? 
Just  remember  this,  Mr.  Gwynne!  She  isn't 
alone  and  unprotected  any  longer.  Now  you 
will  have  a  man  to  deal  with." 

"Why,  you  young  donkey!"     Felix  had  re- 


When  Mortal  Girls!  309 

covered  his  temper.  "You  are  the  one  for  the 
theatre,  with  that  gift  of  eloquence."  He 
spoke  with  good-natured  raillery,  adding  more 
gravely,  "But  whatever  you  think  of  me, 
mightn't  you  credit  Miss  Braeme  with  just  an 
ounce  or  so  of  discretion?" 

"Ah !"  Rupert's  stagy  exclamation  came 
with  a  ring  so  angry  as  to  banish  all  attempt 
at  lightness.  "You  think  this  is  not  serious, 
you  laugh  at  me  .  .  ." 

In  a  second  he  had  flashed  out  a  revolver. 
A  wild  shot  vanished  harmlessly  through  the 
open  window,  but  with  shaking  hand  he  again 
pointed  the  weapon  at  Felix,  who  with  instant 
quickness  knocked  up  his  arm.  A  second  shot 
crashed  through  Rupert's  pale-grey  cloud 
study,  leaving  a  blackened  hole  and  some 
splintered  glass.  The  pistol  fell  to  the 
floor. 

Pocketing  it,  Felix  looked  at  Rupert  as  if  he 
would  kill  him.  Then  slowly  his  face  assumed 
the  strange  impassiveness  with  which  he  could 
at  times  mask  its  inconvenient  transparency. 


310       The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

In  helpless  reaction  from  hysterical  out- 
break, the  lad  leaned  on  a  little  table,  trembling 
and  past  speech  or  action. 

Nina  crouched  in  her  chair.  There  was 
nothing  to  say  or  do.  Her  fingers  mechanic- 
ally held  the  strip  of  green  paper,  Felix 
Gwynne's  cheque. 

Felix  spoke  first.  "That  was  an  excellent 
idea,  Mr.  Braeme!  Did  you  think  of  it  your- 
self? Naturally,  it  would  have  been  the  great- 
est protection  to  your  sister  to  have  me  found 
dead  in  her  room." 

Nina  here  broke  in.  "See  this,  Rupert!" 
She  held  up  the  cheque.  "Mr.  Gwynne  came 
here  to  say  that  he  was  going  away,  abroad, 
not  to  come  back.  And  for  that  reason  he 
could  offer  me  this,  to  save  another  such 
night  .  .  ." 

"Miss  Braeme  refused,"  Felix  put  in 
gravely,  "to  accept  anything,  and  I  waited  to 
persuade  you.  Understand,  young  man,"  he 
was  stern  now.  "I'm  not  offering  explana- 
tions. None  are  needed.  I'm  merely  trying  to 


When  Mortal  Girls !          311 

let  you  see  what  insults  you  heap  upon  your 
sister." 

Noises — steps,  a  buzz  of  voices  came  from 
the  landing  without.  The  electric  bell  rang 
continuously,  there  were  poundings,  rattlings 
at  the  door.  Felix  gave  Nina  a  look;  with  an 
effort  she  rose,  opened  a  crack,  letting  in  bursts 
of  talk. 

.  .  .  "I  tell  you,  it  was  here !" 

.  .  .  "Two  shots,  first  one,  then  an- 
other. .  .  ." 

Nina  blocked  the  door.  "Thank  you  so 
much.  It's  nothing." 

The  night  watchman  knew  his  duty.  "Sorry 
to  disturb  you,  Miss.  I  must  come  in  and  see 
for  myself." 

Standing  aside  she  let  him  pass,  bringing  in 
his  wake  the  elevator  boy,  some  dressing- 
gowned  old  ladies,  lodgers  in  pyjamas,  others 
dimly  crowded  the  passage  beyond. 

Felix  displayed  the  pistol  frankly.  "I  was 
showing  Mr.  Braeme  how  to  clean  this.  We 
did  not  know  it  was  loaded.  It  went  off. 


312       The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

There  is  the  damage."  He  pointed  towards 
the  scorched  picture. 

"Two  shots !"  buzzed  from  the  group. 

"Yes,  two."  Felix  was  unruffled.  "I  be- 
lieve you  are  right." 

Watchman  and  lodgers  looked  ill-convinced. 
Rupert  made  no  attempt  at  unconcerned  be- 
haviour. Braced  for  murder  and  suicide,  he 
could  have  stood  over  Felix  Gwynne's  dead 
body  and  shot  himself  before  an  audience ;  but 
having  once  failed,  he  could  rally  neither 
courage  nor  self-command  to  save  appear- 
ances. 

"All  the  same,  I  don't  like  it,"  came  from  the 
group,  which  apparently  craved  at  least  one 
pallid  corpse. 

"But  what  do  you  want,  ladies,  bloodshed  ?" 
Felix  could  stoop  to  propitiate.  "We're  none 
of  us  in  the  least  hurt.  Hadn't  you  better  be 
getting  to  bed?  And,  watchman,  take  this 
pistol."  He  seemed  full  of  easy  good  humour. 
"Mr.  Braeme  and  I  make  you  a  present  of  it." 

The   watchman   pocketed   his   gift   with   a 


When  Mortal  Girls !          313 

surly  comment  on  people  who  "monkeyed" 
with  firearms. 

Slowly  the  rescue  party  withdrew,  but  mur- 
murs floated  in  its  trail. 

.  .  .  "Actresses  shouldn't  be  taken !" 

.  .  .  "Compromising  to  the  character  of  any 
house." 

.  .  .  "And  what  was  he  doing  there  any- 
how, past  midnight?" 

When  the  door  closed  behind  the  last  res- 
cuer, Felix  again  spoke  to  Rupert. 

"They'll  make  your  sister  leave,  after 
this." 

"Yes,"  Nina  chimed  in  with  a  voice  devoid 
of  expression.  "And  very  right,  too!" 

There  was  a  long  pause,  finally  the  girl  went 
on:  "Go  to  your  room,  Rupert.  There 
are  things  for  Mr.  Gwynne  and  me  to  talk 
of." 

Cowed  and  incapable  of  resistance,  Rupert 
obeyed. 

At  last  the  girl  went  on.  "I'll  take  your 
money,  Mr.  Gwynne.  After  this  I  can't  play 


314       The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

again,  and  it's  easier  to  owe  you  than  Mr. 
Quorn." 

Something  in  her  tone  made  Felix  give  her  a 
quick  look.  She  hung  her  pretty  head.  "You 
poor  child."  He  was  very  gentle.  "You  have 
that  trouble  too  ?" 

She  met  his  eye,  trying  to  be  flippant,  attain- 
ing only  a  miserable  irony. 

"Naturally,  Mr.  Gwynne!  Quorn  supposes 
that  when  you're — through  with  me — can't 
you  see?"  she  poured  out  with  sudden  change 
of  mood.  "It's  reasonable  enough.  Why 
should  people  believe  in  the  unlikely,  that  we 
are — as  we  are  ?  What  link  is  missing  ?  What 
evidence  have  we  failed  to  furnish?  I'm 
beaten !  The  game  is  up !  I've  nothing  left  to 
fight  for.  Not  even  sparing  you,  you're  in  too 
deep  now !" 

Felix  was  watching  her.  He  had  never 
dreamed  her  so  capable  of  passion.  The  aban- 
doned movements  of  her  young  arms,  tossing 
the  world  behind  her,  the  despairing  pride  of 
carriage,  the  beautiful  eyes  no  longer  avoiding 


When  Mortal  Girls  !          315 

his,  but  offering  long  draughts — what  was  she 
doing?  After  all,  how  could  he  harm  her 
further  ? 

"I'm  going  now,  Nina,"  he  said  slowly. 
"Will  you  come,  too?" 

"Without  one  regret!"  Her  upturned  face 
followed  him  with  adoring  eyes  and  parted 
lips.  Recklessness,  revolt  had  swamped  reso- 
lution. Resistance  wras  over.  She  cared  only 
for  escape,  for  happiness — brief,  imperfect, 
founded  on  sorrow.  To  see  Felix  every  day, 
if  it  were  but  a  month,  a  week  .  .  . 

The  electric  bell  rang  with  shrill  persistence. 
Felix  threw  open  the  door,  there  was  no 
further  need  for  secrecy,  for  discretion.  On 
the  threshold  Angela  and  Tommy  stood,  sup- 
porting between  them  the  wavering  figure  of 
Mrs.  Bradish  Laurence.  The  blonde  slip  of  a 
girl,  white  and  scared,  her  sunbrowned  soldier, 
their  wrinkled,  aged  kinswoman,  all  three 
strangely  wore  the  same  expression.  They 
were  anxious,  eager!  Very  quietly  the  two 
young  people  helped  the  old  lady  to  a  chair. 


3 1 6       The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

"Cousin  Emily  zvould  come,"  said  Angela. 

Mechanically,  without  a  word,  Nina  put  a 
cushion  to  her  back. 

Tommy  then  spoke.  "They'd  been  tele- 
phoning for  you  all  over,  Gwynne.  But 
there's  no  wire  to  this  house."  His  voice 
sounded  inadequate,  flat,  yet  full  of  reference 
to  some  unknown  factor,  unknown  but  acutely 
present. 

Mrs.  Laurence  seemed  greatly  broken  since 
the  spring.  Her  wonted  fire  burnt  low.  With 
the  slowness  of  age  she  followed  painfully, 
glancing  from  one  to  the  other  of  the 
young  people.  Angela,  perched  on  the 
arm  of  her  chair,  was  stroking  the  bent  old 
shoulders. 

"You  wanted  me?"  Felix  went  with  inten- 
tion to  Nina's  side. 

The  three  consulted  each  other  with  unhappy 
eyes. 

Nina  was  quiet,  waiting — for  what? 

"We  wanted  to  tell  you."  After  all  it  was 
Angela  who  spoke,  casting  about  her  for  a 


When  Mortal  Girls  !          317 

second,  choosing  her  words,  then  with  a  tender 
rush — "You  have  a  little  baby,  Mr.  Gwynne !" 

"And  Adelaide?"  For  the  first  time  in 
months  her  name  was  on  Felix's  lips. 

Angela  met  the  deeper  unspoken  question. 
"Not  that,  dear  Felix!  But  she's  ill." 

Involuntarily  he  took  a  step  towards  the 
door. 

"Colonel  Noel  begs,"  Angela  went  on, 
"that  you  will  come  to  her.  She  wants 
you." 

Nina's  travelling  clock  ticked  on  the  mantel- 
piece. Somewhere  far  away  the  whistle  of  a 
train  floated  in  at  the  open  window.  Follow- 
ing unconscious,  housewifely  instincts,  Angela 
picked  up  a  splinter  of  glass  from  the  floor. 
Tommy  started  forward  to  help  her,  they 
drifted  close  together  by  Mrs.  Laurence's 
chair. 

Slowly  looking  from  them  to  Felix,  Nina 
seemed  detached,  abandoned. 

"Tell  me,"  Felix  moved  quickly  to  the  door- 
way, then  stopped  short  as  if  reaching  the  end 


3 1 8       The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

of  a  hidden  tether.  His  eye  rested  on  Nina. 
He  leaned  against  the  lintel. 

"Did  you  expect" — Angela  could  not  frame 
her  question — "did  you  know  .  .  .  ?" 

"Nothing.  I  knew  nothing!"  Felix  was 
now  looking  at  the  floor. 

Nina's  clock  struck  one. 

"You're  worn  out,  Cousin  Emily;  shall  we 
go?"  Angela  felt  all  at  sea.  Was  he  glad  or 
sorry?  He  had  shown  no  emotion. 

"Wait!"  Felix  broke  out  eagerly.  "I  must 
think  ...  I  must  think  ..."  Again  he 
stopped,  as  if  meeting  an  invisible  barrier. 

Old  Mrs.  Laurence  roused  herself  to  speak. 
"They  sent  us  word  to-night.  They  are 
alarmed,  and  she  has  been  asking  for  you.  We 
tried  to  find  you.  Then  Angela  came  to  my 
house  from  the  play  and  said  you  were  coming 
here — hours  ago  that  was — to  see  this  lady's 
brother." 

Slowly  doubt  entered  the  room,  the  air  grew 
heavy  with  it.  They  had  believed  in  Felix, 
these  friends  of  his.  Yet  now  he  stood  uncer- 


When  Mortal  Girls  !          319 

tain,  not  heeding  an  appeal  which  no  man 
might  disregard.  Adelaide  had  sent  for  him, 
now,  and  he  waited. 

Suddenly  he  faced  them.  "Things  have 
happened  here,  to-night."  His  tone  told  noth- 
ing. 

The  old  lady  broke  in.  "What  of  this  girl, 
Felix?  The  truth!  You  owe  us  that !" 

Before  he  could  frame  his  answer  Nina 
came  forward.  Quietly,  reverently,  she  knelt 
at  the  old  lady's  feet.  "Believe  me,"  she  began, 
"there  never  has  been — what  you  fear — be- 
tween Mr.  Gwynne  and  me.  There  never  will 
be !"  She  paused,  collecting  herself,  resolving. 
They  should  have  the  truth,  all  of  it!  Not  a 
hesitation,  not  a  reserve  merciful  to  herself 
to  shadow  his  position  with  doubt.  "Never 
anything,"  she  went  on.  "Believe  me,  this  is 
true,  though  at  the  very  instant  that  you 
rang  he  had  asked  me  to  go  away  with 
him!" 

"And  you?"  The  old  lady  looked  down  at 
her,  not  unkindly. 


320       The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

"And  I!"  The  frank  pain  of  her  blush 
made  Tommy  turn  his  eyes  anywhere  but  on 
Nina's  face.  She  was  unfaltering.  "Without 
this  news  to-night — if  you  had  not  come — here 
—it  would  have  been  just  one  more  hideous 
mistake." 

She  sprang  to  her  feet,  now  speaking  with 
the  tragic  freedom  of  conquered  fear,  lost  hap- 
piness. "Don't  misunderstand  me,  you  who 
are  content!"  Her  envious  eyes  fastened  on 
Angela  sobbing  against  Tommy's  shoulder. 
"Don't  for  a  moment  think  the  mistake  would 
have  been  for  me.  For  him  and  him  only! 
Because — though  he  offered  me  all  he  had  to 
give" — her  moment  of  exaltation  had  passed, 
she  was  contained  now,  formal — "because  Mr. 
Gwynne's  suggestion  was  solely  prompted  by 
his  sense  of  duty."  She  stopped,  daunted  by 
the  hardness  of  her  task.  How  should  she, 
ready  a  minute  since  to  follow  him  to  the 
world's  end,  how  should  she  talk  to  these  peo- 
ple of  that  other  woman  to  whom  he  now 
belonged  ? 


When  Mortal  Girls!  321 

Angela  had  raised  her  head  from  Tommy's 
shoulder.  All  at  once  she  glided  to  Nina's  side 
and  kissed  her.  She  studied  Felix  as  he  still 
stood  motionless  by  the  door.  "You  mean, 
dear,"  her  tender  voice  caressed  and  protected 
the  strange  girl  whose  life,  between  them 
there,  they  were  mending — or  breaking, 
"you  mean  that  Felix  has  always  loved  his 
wife!" 

As  she  breathed  this  in  a  low  tone,  shaking 
with  emotion,  Felix  flashed  her  a  look.  An- 
gela was  satisfied. 

"But,  Felix,"  Mrs.  Laurence,  slow  with  age, 
only  half  grasped  the  cause  of  his  delay,  "Ade- 
laide wants  you.  She  is  ill,  she  has  sent  for 
you.  Colonel  Noel — think  what  that  means 
from  him — begs  you  will  come.  We've  a 
motor  waiting  for  you,  at  the  door  .  .  ." 
She  looked  at  Nina  with  rising  suspicion. 
"Don't  you  want  to  go,  Felix?  What  keeps 
you?" 

Again  Nina  spoke,  in  a  curiously  unmoved 
tone.  "An  imaginary  obligation,  dear  lady. 


322       The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

He  has  a  conscience.  He's  staying  here  just 
because  he  wants  to  go.  Don't  you  see?" 
Suddenly  she  blazed  out  in  her  intolerable  dis- 
tress. "Go,  Mr.  Gwynne !  Do  you  think  I  can 
stand  much  more  of  this  ?  It  had  to  be  told,  I 
told  it !  It's  a  queer  position  for  you,  but  God 
in  heaven !  what  is  it  for  me  ?  It's  no  time  for 
hesitation.  No  duty,  no  chivalry  to  a  strange 
woman  can  keep  you  from  your  wife.  You  can 
do  nothing  to  help  me,  it's  out  of  your  power, 
but  go!  Am  I  a  thief  to  try  and  steal  her 
good?  Honour  for  myself,  that's  gone;  no 
one's  fault — not  yours,  not  mine.  But  to  cheat 
her — I  won't  do  that.  You  are  hers,  you  want 
her  and  she  wants  you !  At  least  go  quickly, 
before  I  die  of  shame !" 

"And  before  Adelaide  dies  of  wanting  you, 
Felix."  It  was  Angela  who  spoke,  with  the 
face  and  voice  of  one  who  trembles  from  a 
glimpse  of  mysteries.  "Trust  us!  We'll  see 
to  Nina  Braeme." 

Without  a  word  Felix  picked  up  his  hat  and 
left  them.  His  quickening  steps  rang  fainter 


When  Mortal  Girls  !          323 

and  fainter  on  the  stairs.  Old  Mrs.  Lau- 
rence tried  to  rise  and  sank  back,  tottering. 
Tommy  and  Angela  were  at  her  side  in  an 
instant. 

"Dear  cousin,"  they  seemed  to  speak 
as  one  person,  "this  is  too  much;  you're 
ill." 

"Not  ill,  children,  only  I've  lived  more  than 
eighty  years."  Again  she  seemed  confused, 
unable  to  collect  her  thoughts. 

Tommy  took  the  lead.  "You  mustn't  play 
to-morrow,  Miss  Braeme." 

Nina  was  twisting  a  bit  of  greenish  paper 
into  a  lamp-lighter.  Presently  she  found  a 
match  and  burned  her  handiwork.  Then  she 
spoke.  "Thank  you,  Lieutenant  Gordon,  but 
business  is  business,  and  broken  contracts 
bring  every  kind  of  trouble."  All  at  once  she 
turned  savagely  on  him — "Do  you  know,  but 
of  course,  how  should  you  ?  To-night,  here  in 
this  room,  my  brother  tried  to  kill  Mr. 
Gwynne.  Look  at  that  broken  glass!  There 
were  two  shots.  The  lodgers  heard,  they 


324       The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

flocked  in !  It  will  be  in  to-morrow's  paper. 
Think  of  that!  Is  it  likely  they'll  let  me  off, 
now?  Why,  I'll  draw  .  .  ." 

"No !"  Old  Mrs.  Laurence  was  very  feeble, 
but  perfectly  in  command.  "You've  had  an 
escape,  a  close  one!"  She  shook  a  wisely  un- 
derstanding head;  thinking  of  Felix,  remem- 
bering his  face  as  he  had  stood  in  the  doorway ; 
perhaps  she  dimly  guessed  that  for  this  ardent 
girl  there  might  be  more  obvious  benefits  than 
escape — from  him!  Nevertheless  she  went 
on :  "We  did  well  to  come  to-night."  She 
reached  Nina  a  trembling  hand.  "And  what- 
ever happens,  life  is  still  to  be  lived,  and  you 
at  least  are  young.  It  won't  hurt  always  as  it 
does  at  this  minute.  You  need  never  act 
again,  child,  not  till  you  want  to.  You  shall 
go  away  and  study.  I've  a  little  time  left  to 
see  to  that.  Get  your  wraps  now  and  come 
home  with  me.  I'm  very  tired." 

"But  why  does  it  happen  so,  Cousin  Emily? 
what  does  it  mean?"  Angela,  pitiful  and 
white,  clung  to  Tommy,  and  as  Nina  left  them, 


When  Mortal  Girls  !          325 

questioned  this  wasteful  cruelty  of  fate.  "Why 
should  this  girl  suffer  so  ?  She's  been  good ! 
And  will  Felix  and  Adelaide  be  happy,  after 
all?" 

"Ah,  who  can  tell  that?"  Mrs.  Laurence 
found  no  answer.  "They're  an  odd  pair. 
They  may  never  be  entirely  rapturous  to- 
gether, but  at  least  they've  learnt  that  there  is 
no  happiness  for  them  apart.  As  for  that 
tragic  girl — "  the  old  lady  fell  into  a  moment's 
revery,  looking  up  briskly  as  Nina  entered  with 
hat  and  coat — "ready  so  soon,  my  dear?  I'm 
glad  you're  quick.  Slow  people  tire  me."  She 
turned  to  Angela.  "As  for  your  question, 
there  is  no  answer.  Better  not  hunt  for  first 
causes,  you  young  creatures.  Take  this  queer 
world  as  you  find  it,  and  thank  heaven  every 
time  you  chance  upon  some  minutes  that  are 
not  wholly  bad."  Here,  with  wonderful 
sweetness,  she  smiled  into  Nina's  set  face. 
"Your  arm,  my  dear.  I  grow  feeble.  I'll  lean 
on  you;  and  will  you  trust  me  for  to-morrow, 
Nina  Braeme?" 


326       The  Poet  and  the  Parish 

"Trust  you !"  Nina  spoke  with  sad  gravity. 
"Whatever  happens,  whatever  has  been,  come 
what  may,  I  count  the  minute  wholly  good 
when  you,  dear  lady,  reach  a  hand  to  me." 


THE  END 


By    MAY    SINCLAIR 

Author  of  "The  Divine  Fire  " 

SUPERSEDED 

A  story  of  two  strongly  contrasted  teachers  in  a  fashionable 
girls'  school  in  London  :  an  old  maid  arithmetic  teacher  whose 
rule-ridden  soul  finally  awakens  to  the  real  world  of  men, 
women  and  love,  and  the  "  classical  mistress,"  a  beautiful  and 
vital  woman  who  tries  to  help  her  less  fortunate  colleague.  $1.25 

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novel  in  sentiment  and  original  in  conception.  The  '  old  maid  ' 
of  fiction,  'despised  and  rejected  of  men,'  scorned  and  ridiculed, 
is  a  familiar  figure.  To  dignify  this  character  with  the  pathos  of 
its  own  tragedy,  to  make  it  the  leading  personage  of  a  story  that 
compels  interest  and  converts  ridicule  into  respect  and  sym- 
pathy, is  a  feat  that  makes  one  wonder  if  in  future  years  the 
quiet  little  English  woman  .  .  .  may  not  be  recognized  as  a  *~ew 
Jane  Austen."— New  York  Sun. 

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tale."— Chicago  Record-Herald. 

"  A  well  told  and  touching  story  .  .  .  relieved  by  humor  and 
opinions." — Springfield  Republican. 

AUDREY  CRAVEN 

(Just  published}    $1.50 

Audrey  Craven  is  a  pretty  little  woman  with  copper-colored 
hair  and  the  soul  of  a  spoiled  child.  Though  "  a  good 
woman  "  she  has  a  fatal  fascination  for  most  men.  There  aie 
telling  glimpses  of  the  life  of  London  writers  and  illustrators, 
and  not  a  little  humor. 


Henry  Holt   and   Company 

Publishers  (via  '06)  New  York 


By     BURTON     E.      STEVENSON 

AFFAIRS  OF  STATE 

(Just  published) 

Illustrated  by  F.  VAUX  WILSON.  335  pp.  $1.50 
Two  American  girls,  sojourning  with  their  father  at  a  little 
Dutch  watering  place,  unintentionally  become  involved  in  a 
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situation,  humorous  at  first,  rapidly  becomes  dramatic,  and 
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moving  love  story,  in  which  Cupid,  with  the  aid  of  American 
good  looks,  rules  the  destinies  of  England  and  Germany,  and 
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duchy  of  Schloshold-Markheim. 

THE  MARATHON  MYSTERY 

With  five  scenes  in  color  by  ELIOT  KEEN.     $1.50 
The  story  of  a  strange  happening  in  a  New  York  apartment 
house,  and  at  a  Long  Island  house  party.     The  plot  is  unusual, 
full  of  surprises  ;  the  handling  is  masterful.      It  has  been  repub- 
lished  in  England  and  Germany,  and  printed  six  times  here. 

"  The  author  has  stepped  at  once  to  the  front  ranks  among 
American  writers  of  detective  tales  ...  a  yarn  with  genuine 
thrills,"  (and  comparing  it  with  some  of  the  most  popular  detect- 
ive stories)  "the  English  is  better  and  cleaner  cut,  the  passages 
are  never  maudlin,  there  is  throughout  more  dignity  and  sense, 
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"  Professor  Dicey  recently  said,  'If  you  like  a  detective  story 
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gain.''—.^. Y.  Tribune. 

Henry      Holt     and     Company 

Publishers  (viii  '06)  New  York 


THE  MISSES 

MAKE-BELIEVE 

By  MARY  STUART  BOYD.    $1.50 

A  tale  ot  two  Devonshire  gentlewomen  who  attempted  the 
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pathos  of  being  "  hard  up,"  a  good  love  interest,  telling  bits  of 
social  foibles,  effective  bits  of  garden  talk,  and  hints  without 
obtruding  the  fact  that  more  may  be  gained  by  sincere  living 
than  by  struggling  for  the  meretricious. 

"  When  the  balance  at  your  bank  is  becoming  steadily  less 
and  the  bills  in  your  private  sanctum  growing  perceptibly 
larger,  take  this  book  into  a  quiet  corner  and  have  it  out  with 
your  conscience.  .  .  .  The  two  girls  are  charming  and  ingeni- 
ous."— Brooklyn  Daily  Eagle. 

"The  various  characters  ...  all  well  drawn  and  enter- 
taining. .  .  .  Noteworthy  for  its  quiet  humor  and  for  the 
agreeable  dexterity  with  which  are  contrasted  the  fashionable 
lire  in  London  with  its  melancholy  shams  and  the  more  inde- 
pendent and  healthful  existence  in  the  country."  —Baltimore 
News. 

THE  PROFESSOR'S 


By  MRS.  ALFRED  SIDGWICK.    $1.50 

A  love  story  ol  German  university  and  English  country  life, 
notable  for  humor  and  fine  character  drawing.  Not  sensational, 
but  not  commonplace,  it  has  received  high  praise  from  the 
authorities,  and  its  sale  shows  it  is  appreciated  by  the  discrimi- 
nating. 

"  Strongly  reminds  one  of  Miss  Fothergill's  '  First  Violin  '  .  .  . 
the  tale  is  a  good  one,  told  with  much  humor  and  much  excellent 
character  study  .  .  .  very  readable."— A 'ew  York  Times  Review. 

"One  of  the  most  interesting  and  well-told  novels  of  the 
season,  and  it  should  be  one  of  the  most  popular."—  The  Academy, 
London. 

"  Thoroughly  pleasing  and  femininely  sympathetic  .  .  . 
abundant  dialogue  naturally  told  ...  a  co'mmendable,  clever, 
pretty  book." — San  Francisco  Argonaut. 

Henry   Holt   and   Company 

Publishers  (viii  '06)  New  York 


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